Glamour and Brimstone
by Mnemosyne's Elegy
Summary: A routine job comes to a screeching stop when an ayakashi dressed in a glamour appears, wearing a face Yato hasn't seen in a thousand years. He thought he had escaped Yomi when Hiyori called his name, but Izanami isn't ready to let him go. After all, he and Ebisu made a deal, and Izanami isn't one to take a broken bargain lightly.
1. Chapter 1

**Note: Here, have the random Izanami-plots-revenge-and-screws-over-Yato-and-Yukine fic that no one asked for.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

* * *

Yato pivoted neatly on his heel and slashed Sekki's twin blades across the insectoid ayakashi glowing an otherworldly blue-green as it tried to catch them from behind. It screeched in a cacophony of a hundred ghostly voices rolled into one and exploded unceremoniously right in the middle of the street. A dark-haired middle-aged man, voice tight with irritation as he barked into his cellphone, strode through the middle of the carnage without so much as a second glance. Humans. Truly oblivious creatures.

"Seventy-one!" Yato said with a grin.

"Yes, yes, you're doing okay today," Yukine conceded. "But you don't have to announce every single one."

"Of course I do. You're the one giving me quotas to fill. We have to keep track somehow! Otherwise you'll lowball the numbers just to say I didn't make it and call me lazy. I'm on to your tricks."

"I don't do that!"

"Oh really? Because I count even when I don't say it out loud, and I've found quite a few discrepancies between your count and mine."

Yukine didn't have the grace to look embarrassed, spiteful child, but Yato felt a telltale tingle of mild guilt run down his spine and smirked.

"Your accusations are outrageous," the kid said primly. "Pay attention."

Yato cackled loudly and jumped high into the air as a long, spindly ayakashi leg slammed into the pavement where he had just been standing. He managed to catch the very edge of a lamppost with the sole of his boot and threw his bodyweight into it to redirect his trajectory towards the neat row of buildings lining the street. Flipping about in midair, he slammed his boots into the stone façade of a store with enough force to send the impact jarring through his body in an electrifying fashion as he launched himself ever higher and back out into the street.

A satisfied smirk pulled his lips tight as he slammed directly into the large body of the spiderlike ayakashi hanging suspended high above the street. His on-the-fly trajectory calculations were spot-on. But to be fair, he'd had centuries of practice.

"Stop congratulating yourself and kill it already," Yukine said in irritation.

"Your wish is my command, oh guidepost mine," Yato sing-songed. "You are my dearest bundle of joy and intense aggravation."

Yukine spluttered uselessly in some combination of embarrassment and anger, but he stayed sharp and that was all Yato needed right now. The god thrust the blades down and easily pierced the ayakashi's body before ripping the creature apart with a couple powerful strokes, still chortling to himself.

The ayakashi wailed and burst apart at the seams he'd carved into it, freeing from its influence the little boy staring thoughtfully through the window of the candy shop below. The kid shook his head sharply and wandered on down the street with empty pockets, and Yato plunged through the air to land in a neat crouch on the sidewalk.

"Seventy-two! Although that was a pretty big one. Maybe it should count as two."

"Absolutely not," Yukine said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Each ayakashi counts as _one_. Maybe _that's_ why your count is always off."

Yato highly doubted that, but decided to be the bigger person and not call the kid out on it again.

"Smells nice," an ayakashi rasped behind them.

Yato bit out a curse and threw himself to the side, rolling out of the way of the phantom's attack and popping back up to his feet.

"What a pain," he grumbled.

Something barreled into him from behind, and he yelped as he pitched forward and a new ayakashi snapped its jaws closed around his right shoulder and upper arm.

"Yato!" Yukine cried.

Yato gritted his teeth and swung around to bring his free arm up and slash the blade across the eyes of the ayakashi chewing on him. It squealed and released him, and he had only half a second to twist out of the way of the first phantom lunging at him again and thrust the blade out to tear along its side as it hurtled past. A messy tear since his dominant arm had been compromised, but more than powerful enough.

"Seventy-three."

"Are you okay?" Yukine asked, forgetting his gruffness as concern leaked into his voice. A prickle of guilt stronger than the last pinched the ends of Yato's nerves, even though he'd already told the kid several times that he couldn't prevent every injury. "I'm sorry."

"Relax, kid. It's fine. Considering we're standing twenty feet from an open vent, we've been getting off lucky."

The sky had been a clear, sunny blue earlier, but a supernatural storm had been clouding the air with streaks of black gloom and hordes of ayakashi for the past forty minutes or so. Yato normally steered clear of an open vent's epicenter, preferring to lurk around at the edges of the storm if he needed to bother at all, but he had a quota to fill and Yukine was pushy about cleaning up the ayakashi clogging the streets and it was a pretty small storm, all things considered.

It was hardly the most dangerous situation Yato had ever found himself in and he rather thought they had it well under control by now—better than earlier, at least, when the escaping phantoms were as thick as flies—but it still paid to be on guard. There were still a couple dozen ayakashi floating about the block, and every once in a while the vent spit out another, although the flow had slowed considerably.

And more than one had managed to nick him, although this was the first injury bordering on serious. There were little patches of blight itching at his skin like stinging nettles, but they were easily ignored. Except for this last one, obviously. The blight was already burning like fire, and he could feel it creeping down his arm and across his shoulder and back. His upper arm felt like it had been hit by a freight train, with some stabbing pains and blight to round things out. He made a note to take a look at it later, after cleansing the blight.

"Yato," Yukine said in warning, but Yato hadn't forgotten the other ayakashi.

He was already spinning on his heel and gritting his teeth as he raised his injured arm along with the other.

"Seventy– Hey!"

A gunshot cracked the air, and the ayakashi exploded as the bullet lodged itself in its head.

"You're always in the thick of trouble, aren't you?" Bishamon said, quirking one eyebrow in contempt as she studied Yato like he was something particularly disgusting stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

"What do you want?" he asked with a scowl. "That was _my_ ayakashi."

"Well, excuse _me_ ," she said dryly. She twisted around on Kuraha's back and sent another volley of shots into the half a dozen phantoms lurking on the other side of the street. "It's my job to monitor vents and clean up the mess."

"We were here first," Yato muttered. "I didn't see you forty minutes ago."

" _Some_ of us are important gods with busy lives."

Yato opened his mouth, but was brought up short by Yukine's tone of withering exasperation. "Quit being a child. Let's just finish this up already."

Yato huffed out a breath, turned his back on Bishamon, and went back to slicing up ayakashi in the hopes that she would take the hint and go away. Unfortunately, he had no such luck. He had never been a particularly lucky god, and Bishamon had always been a particularly annoying one.

He was very aware of her rampage somewhere behind him, and might have kicked up a bigger fuss if he wasn't so worn out. He'd wait to pick a fight until his arm didn't feel like it was about to fall off.

On that note, he didn't appreciate the psycho bitch's scornfully amused commentary about his clumsy work. He couldn't help it that his dominant arm was turning into a lump of fiery jelly. And even if he _was_ a little sloppier than usual, he was still doing a damn good job of butchering ayakashi. He had worked around injuries far worse than this before and knew plenty of techniques to favor his non-dominant arm. In fact, he was _still_ a better fighter than Bishamon, so there.

Still, he was exhausted by the time he and Bishamon had cleared the area. They poked around a bit longer, but found no more ayakashi sneaking about. The vent had mostly closed up and wasn't spitting them out anymore, and they watched it for a few minutes longer before shrugging it off.

"I'll keep an eye on it until it closes completely," Bishamon said. She stood beside Kuraha and Yato, eyeing the vent thoughtfully. Yato didn't doubt Kazuma was taking note of everything to add it to their oh-so-busy agenda. "We'll drop by again later to make sure it hasn't started up again."

"Eighty-seven," Yato wheezed. "But you came and stole my phantoms, so now I'm going to have to go hunt some more so that Yukine gets off my case. Darn, I was so close to a hundred, too."

"After you hit a hundred, we're moving on to a hundred and fifty," Yukine said serenely.

" _What_? One hundred and _fifty_? You're a slave driver, Yukine!"

Metal slipped from between the god's fingers like a liquid thing as a blonde-haired boy appeared beside him. Yukine glared.

"It's the only way you'll stop being lazy and get something done."

"I get lots of things done," Yato protested.

This whole god of fortune thing was quickly becoming a pain. Yukine had latched on to the idea of killing ridiculous quantities of ayakashi to make that happen, and Yato didn't have the heart to point out that it only did so much good when no one even believed in him. He could only be a real god of fortune if he could break free from Father, and he could never do that unless enough people remembered him that he no longer relied on that lifeline. But he would follow his guidepost, and maybe he would get lucky for once and things would work out.

"Pestering Hiyori doesn't count," Yukine said in a voice as dry as the desert. Then he frowned a little, brows pinching together above worried amber eyes. "Although we need to go cleanse your blight first and take a look at that arm. Let's go."

"It's fine," Yato grumbled.

Yukine was already stalking off down the street, presumably back to Kofuku's place, and didn't deign to look back.

"You two are such a weird pair," Bishamon said, shaking her head. "Come, Kuraha."

She began walking after Yukine, her head swiveling around as she searched the streets for…something. Maybe still just double-checking for any ayakashi they might have missed. The lion rose to his paws, stretched, and padded after her. Why they had to be going in the same direction was beyond Yato.

"You don't have to walk us home," he said with a smirk as he trailed several paces behind them all. "Although that's awful nice of you."

"Oh, be quiet," Bishamon said without even looking back. "I have better things to do with my time."

"Ohhh? What–?"

"Yato-sama?" asked a voice from behind him.

A vise clamped around his chest in one sharp, blinding _snap_ and sent all the air whistling out of his lungs at once. He didn't give himself time to consider the familiarity of the sound before spinning around.

The dark-haired girl with the soft eyes and beads in her hair was as eerily familiar yet alien as her voice. She couldn't be here, not when he had killed her a thousand years ago.

His mouth opened, but only a strangled sound emerged. He drank in the sight of her hungrily, in some dangerously combustible mixture of shock, hope, disbelief, guilt, unease, grief.

"You're all grown up," Sakura said with a gentle smile. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Yes," Yato croaked. His voice was a weak, strangled thing that scraped painfully along his dry throat.

"What in the world?" Bishamon asked. "Who…? What _is_ that?"

" _Yato_ ," Yukine said sharply.

Yato barely heard.

There was something not quite right about Sakura. Her features were so familiar, yet blurred ever so slightly like the ravages of time on memory. Her voice was familiar, but there was a strange note woven into it, like a second voice laid beneath.

"I've missed you," she said, stepping away from the vent beside her and towards Yato.

And suddenly he realized that it didn't matter. It didn't matter that this wasn't his Sakura, that it was only an illusion preying on his mind. It spoke in her voice, wore her face, read his thoughts and desires. Even if this wasn't his original Sakura, she knew everything _he_ knew about her, born from his mind as she must be. In a very real way, that made her his Sakura too.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. Tears filled his eyes but didn't fall, because he had long since given up shedding real tears. Sakura's face blurred behind them, smoothing over the slight haze that clouded the features reconstructed from his memories. "I didn't understand. I didn't know what would happen."

"It's okay." Sakura's face came back into focus as Yato blinked back the tears resolutely. She was so gentle, so forgiving, as she stopped directly in front of him. "We're together again. That's what's important, right?"

Yato's face crumpled. "Right," he rasped.

Sakura held out her hands, and he reached out and took them. It felt like forgiveness, like finally being able to say the words and express the regret he'd held for so long and finding forgiveness and peace from the person who mattered the most.

It also felt like blight. There was a small, sharp sting on each hand where their fingers touched, and itching fire began spreading slowly across his hands and up his arms like a rash. He hardly noticed.

Sakura took a few slow steps back, tugging Yato along gently, and he followed without complaint. He was docile and compliant, still wrapped up in the whirlwind of emotion battering his insides. It was impossible to tear his gaze away from her face, even when he saw an unnatural, reflective light lurking somewhere in the depths of her eyes.

"Come with me," she said in a voice like the soft rustling of leaves in the wind, a hundred whispers all rolled into one. "We can be together forever."

Yato nodded once, jerkily, swallowed whole by the fantasy that was real and yet not. Sakura's hands were warm in his as she led him one step at a time, even though the itching on his skin was turning painful.

" _Yato_ ," Bishamon said in a strange voice, hard and sharp-edged. "Get away. That isn't…whoever you think she is. That's an ayakashi."

"I know," Yato said, his voice sounding distant and far away in his own ears, like it belonged to someone else.

But she was _right here_ with all her warmth and kindness, and he had missed her _so much_.

As if in response to his acknowledgement, Sakura's body seemed to waver and then melt into a grotesque creature plucked straight from Yato's nightmares—and memories. Her body stretched and expanded into a monstrous hunk of muscle and sinew, her ears lengthening and folding back while her hair spilled down her gnarled spine like a coarse mane. Her mouth widened impossibly long and filled with thick, sharp teeth, while large eyeballs sprouted across her face and along the ridge of her back. And they were streaming tears, still. Tears that ground Yato's shattered heart to dust.

Yato's lips trembled and he flinched, but he didn't try to pull away. This was somehow expected, because it was how he remembered it to be. Sakura's hands and arms were the only part of her left recognizable and intact, and her fingers tightened around his painfully as she pulled him closer. He went without protest, transfixed by the half-dozen weeping eyes marring her form.

He felt like a child again, small and horrified and lost and terribly, terribly sad.

"You wouldn't leave me alone, would you?" Sakura asked in a voice like nails on a chalkboard.

Yato shook his head mutely, and she retreated back towards the vent again, pulling him along with her.

"Borderline!" yelled a voice from behind him.

A line of white light slashed through the air between them, slicing Sakura's skin and sending her reeling back with a screech. Yato blinked at the line dividing them in incomprehension for a long moment before panic set in. He slammed his hands against the barrier, which didn't budge. He had to get through, had to get to Sakura and help her and make her stop crying.

"Yato–"

He spun around and glared at Yukine with such venom that the shinki, who had been hurrying towards him, stopped short.

"You don't draw a borderline between a god and their shinki," he snarled, fury searing hot through his veins and sizzling along every nerve.

Yukine's eyes went wide and a funny expression twisted his lips, almost as if Yato had slapped him. "Yato," he said in a small voice, "that's an ayakashi."

Something fragile inside Yato trembled and threatened to break.

"I know!" he said, his voice cracking. "I know that. She's been dead for centuries. But you don't understand, I have to… She's crying so much, I have to…"

He didn't know how to explain. It wasn't Sakura, but in a way it still was. Some piece of her, at least. The piece he held in his heart.

"Yukine, drop the borderline," Bishamon said firmly.

Yato's heart lifted in fevered hope. Bishamon was crazy about her shinki—she would understand why he needed to help Sakura. She had always–

It hit him like a slap to the face. Bishamon had been so in love with her shinki that she had refused to free them even after they were beyond saving and were slowly killing her. He had always held her in a bit of contempt for that, but wasn't that exactly what he was doing here? He was so desperate to do anything for Sakura that he would throw himself at an ayakashi in the name of someone who had been dead for a millennium. Even if this was, in some strange and twisted way, some part of Sakura, it was also an ayakashi using that for its own ends.

Yukine bit his lip, gaze darting between the gods and the monster lurking on the other side of the borderline, but then nodded. The line shimmered out of existence, and Yato understood Bishamon's intentions in a flash of clarity as she raised the whip and sent it snapping through the air.

"Stop!" Yato cried. He lunged to the side and threw up his damaged arm.

Bishamon's eyes widened and she tried to pull back the strike, but the tip of the whip slashed across his upper arm. He grabbed it before it had time to retreat, wrapping the cord tight about his hand and holding Kinuha captive even when Bishamon tried tugging her away.

"I don't know why that thing looked like one of your old shinki, but it's an ayakashi," Bishamon said, frustration and an unidentifiable mix of other emotions clouding her voice and face. "You have to let me kill it."

" _No_." Yato glared, his lips pressed tight around the word. The cord criss-crossing his hand bit deep into his skin and stung like a scourge. "It's a god's responsibility to look after their shinki—including putting them down when they're beyond saving. Just because _you_ couldn't do it doesn't mean that I can't. I did it last time, and I'll do it again. She's my responsibility, even if it's just an impostor wearing her face. Stay out of what doesn't concern you."

Shock and hurt flickered across Bishamon's face, but Yato didn't have time to consider anyone else right now. He untangled his hand from the whip and turned back to the ayakashi stealing Sakura from him again.

"Sekki."

He was already lunging forward before the swords fitted into his hands, trusting Yukine would be there. The first slash was too shallow to do the job. Yato's fault, because he'd forgotten to take his injuries into account. The ayakashi squealed and retreated a few paces. Yato charged forward again, but its words drew him up short.

"Yato-sama, please remember this," it said, stealing Sakura's words right out of his head. "People die even if you do not kill them, and that means you will never see them again."

It was a shot to the heart. Yato could feel himself shaking, cracking.

" _Yato!_ " Yukine cried.

The fetch lashed out, wrapping around Yato's injured arm and dragging him back towards the vent. Blinding pain exploded up and down his arm, and the sword fell from his nerveless fingers to clatter to the ground.

"You wouldn't kill me again, would you?" asked the ayakashi in its otherworldly voice.

And Yato hardened his heart just like that, because he knew what needed to be done and this thing wearing Sakura's face had no right to presume to understand her death and what it meant to him. He twisted around in a sharp, neat motion, bringing up the blade in his left hand to slice deep through the ayakashi.

"I'm sorry," he breathed. "Again."

The ayakashi screeched and exploded. Yato stared at where it had been with dull eyes, both half a second away from falling apart and perfectly dead and hollow at the same time.

He gradually became aware that Yukine was babbling anxiously in his ears, but it was hard to focus.

"Yukine."

"Are you okay?" Yukine demanded as soon as he'd materialized just behind the god. "I…"

Blight was creeping across Yato's body in burning swathes, his right arm was racked with stabbing pains, and wild emotions ricocheted off his insides, bouncing off his ribs and slamming into his heart with enough force to crack it. The sensations were overwhelming enough, but he realized that the tight pains in his chest weren't only coming from him.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you," he said hollowly.

"It–it's okay, just… Is…?"

"You saw her too, right? It wasn't just me?"

There was a long pause before Yukine said, reluctance tugging at every word, "It looked like a girl. And then it changed into a monster."

Yato stared vacantly at the empty stretch of ground in front of him and didn't look back. "They were both her."

"Both? But…"

"I've never seen an ayakashi do that," Bishamon said, sounding thoroughly unsettled. "What in the world just happened?"

Yato had never seen an ayakashi do that either, but he'd seen someone else who had.

"Some kind of glamour," he said. "An illusion meant to ensnare. Obviously targeted at me if you saw the same thing instead of someone who meant something to you. Someone sent it. Someone who can control ayakashi and create glamours." He considered the two possibilities that first sprang to mind. "I wonder which one it was," he mused.

"Is it your da–?" Yukine choked on the word and hurried to cover over his misstep. "The sorcerer?"

Such a slip-up would usually put Yato on edge, but Bishamon and Kazuma had already been poking around and discovered a little too much since his return from Yomi a few weeks back. That wouldn't be a surprise to them, though Yato was doing his best to restrict any more information they might stumble across. In any case, with everything else that had just happened, he couldn't bring himself to care about something so small.

"It's the kind of thing he would do," he conceded. "And only he and Nora knew about her. I don't know if his new locution brush can create and control ayakashi with glamour, but it's more advanced than his first one so it's possible. But I don't think it was him this time." His gaze traveled slowly across the few feet of pavement in front of him and locked on the small vent ripped into the earth. "I think it was Izanami."

" _Izanami?_ " Bishamon repeated incredulously. "She controls the underworld, but up here?"

"She'd dropped the charm by the time you showed up, but she uses glamours. She prefers to look and sound like someone you're comfortable with so that you'll want to stay with her." And, Yato reflected bitterly, she had already used elements of Sakura in her glamour. She might have looked like Hiyori at first glance, but the style of her hair and a few other subtle details had been undeniably Sakura. "And she made the brushes to create and control ayakashi. It wouldn't surprise me if she had a brush that could manage this."

And if nothing else gave it away, the ayakashi's insistence on him being with her forever was enough. That had Izanami's name written all over it, even if most of the rest sounded like things pulled directly from Yato's own thoughts and memories. It was more surprising that it could talk so much at all, but he supposed they did possess rudimentary speech and Izanami had said she taught them to talk to keep her company. It was feasible, as long as there was a glamour to smooth over the rough edges.

Yato walked to the vent, his boots dragging along the ground, and stared down into the little black crack. It was silent and still now, and he could see blackness plunging deep into the heart of the earth. He stared down into its depths for a long moment before drawing in a deep breath.

"Hey!" he yelled down the crevasse. His voice echoed and bounced in the void. "Keep your bony fingers out of my head!"

He glared down until the dying echoes of his voice faded away, and was just about to turn back when a faint whisper echoed back up from the depths.

"We had a deal," it hissed in a low murmur punctuated by the soft clacking of teeth and bone.

It took him by surprise, and a niggling sense of unease in the back of his head whispered that it wasn't a good sign if she really was taking enough interest to become so closely involved.

"I hate to tell you this," he called back down, "but I never agreed to your deal and the one who did is dead and reincarnated. Let it go."

"We have a deal," Izanami whispered back from somewhere far below.

Yato's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Stay away from my shinki! _All_ of them."

Away from Sakura's memory, which was precious and aching. Away from Yukine, who was Yato's _kid_ and unbearably precious. And even away from Nora, who had been released and had caused Yato immeasurable grief over the centuries but would always hold a place in his heart for everything they had shared. Away from every shinki he'd ever had, no matter for how short a time. Poking at Sakura's memory had awoken a fierce protectiveness for all his shinki and a fear that they'd be caught up in his mess, but he hoped it didn't come to that. Nora was the only one Izanami had met, and that girl wasn't likely to get caught.

"We'll be friends," the echoing whisper replied.

Yato ground his teeth together until his jaw ached. The vent was slowly sealing up, the earth knitting together the wound torn into it, but Izanami's voice promised that this wasn't over. He watched as the scar in the pavement shrank to nothing.

"What deal?" Bishamon asked from behind him.

He spoke to the ground, where the vent had been. "She told Ebisu that she'd give him the brush if one of us stayed down there with her. I was the lucky winner. He never really intended to negotiate, but I guess Izanami doesn't want to let it go that easily."

He had pitied Izanami a little before, felt a little sorry for her despite her obvious madness and desire to keep him trapped in the underworld forever. She reminded him a bit of himself: lonely, desperate, and a little bit crazy. But any last trace of that had been pulverized to dust. Her manipulative methods were too much like Father's, and they made Yato feel weak and helpless and broken. They left him seething with righteous fury that did no good when he was powerless.

"She can't actually force you back down, can she?" Yukine asked. His voice sounded funny, a little too high and squeaky. "Is–?"

"I was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Yato said, toeing the unassuming patch of pavement where the vent had been. "I don't know how she realized I was up here, but I just happened to be right next to a vent and she seized her chance. I wouldn't worry too much. She's unbeatable in Yomi, but she holds little sway up here. I don't make a habit of poking around vents and I'm a pro at killing ayakashi. If she could force me down, she would've done it instead of trying to trick me into it."

"Still," Bishamon murmured, sounding troubled, "this is unprecedented."

"Yato?" Yukine asked hesitantly.

He crept up beside the god, but Yato only hunched his shoulders and continued to stare at the ground.

"It's fine," he said in a rough voice.

"Yato… You're crying."

"I am not," he said fiercely. He didn't realize how badly his hand was shaking until he lifted it to scrub at the tears he wasn't supposed to be shedding and hadn't realized he was. "I stopped that centuries ago."

But his throat felt tight anyway, and he had to press his lips into a hard line and swipe his sleeve across his face.

Yukine was quiet for a long moment before asking, "What was her name?"

 _Which one?_ Yato thought bitterly. _The one I gave her or the one that killed her?_

"I named her Sakura," he said in a low voice. Yukine's emotions were wound tight in his chest, but they were impossible to untangle when he was already such a mess himself.

"She…crossed the line?" Yukine asked. He sounded cautious, uncertain, worried.

That was treading too close to dangerous territory, but Yato couldn't let the misunderstanding stand.

"It wasn't her fault," he said. "She didn't do anything wrong. Someone else forced her across."

"Forced…? How even…? Was it your dad?" Yukine coughed loudly as if trying to drown out his misspoken word, but that ship had already sailed and Yato didn't much care.

 _It was me._

Yato dropped his hand and closed his fingers into a fist. He stared at the diseased flesh and welcomed the burning of the blight. He wished the pain was enough to distract him, but instead it just felt like justice for his atrocities. That line of thought made him uncomfortable, as it always did when it reared its ugly head.

"I will fight until the end to save my shinki. But when they go beyond saving…" Yato finally looked up and met Yukine's wide, worried eyes with his own flat gaze. "Be careful, Yukine. If you cross over, I will be the one who puts you down. And it will break both of us."

Yukine stepped back, his eyes shimmering with whatever it was making Yato's chest feel so tight, and Yato wondered absently if that had been too much. Yukine might still be too young and innocent to understand that it was a gift of sorts, albeit a bitter one.

But Yukine just swallowed hard and dropped his gaze. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

Yato wasn't sure what exactly he was sorry about, but assumed it was the generic response to watching someone break down and not being able to say anything to really help.

"It's fine," he said as he turned away and walked toward Bishamon instead, stone-faced. "It was nearly a thousand years ago, way back when I was still just a kid. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Doesn't it?" Bishamon asked, and he wished she would go away. "The holes shinki leave never quite go away." She was staring at him, but not at his face. He looked down to follow her gaze and found his hand fisted in his jersey above his heart, as if he could hold his shattered pieces together and close up the empty space. He hurriedly pried his fingers apart and jammed his hands into his pockets. "But it helps if you have one left to rely on."

Yato half-turned back to look at Yukine as if Bishamon had physically yanked him around. The kid was looking small and sad, chewing on his lip and rocking on his heels. Purple splotches bloomed on his arms, and Yato winced.

"I blighted you. Sorry. Come on, kid. Let's get you cleaned up."

It had been necessary, but not having even considered that Yukine would be blighted if Yato used him in his current state was an unforgivable oversight.

"You're way worse," Yukine muttered as he shuffled over.

"Yeah, but I'm used to it." Yato waited for him to catch up before turning on his heel and striding past Bishamon without another look. "We'll cleanse the blight and then finish today's quota." He frowned, brows drawing together as he came up blank. "I…don't even remember what we were at anymore."

"You just managed to hit a hundred," Yukine mumbled. "We'll wait to go for one-fifty until tomorrow."

Yato's eyebrow quirked upwards. "You're a horrible liar. I think it was like eighty-something. But hey, better to round up than round down. It would be more fun to hang out with Hiyori anyway."

"I already told you, I don't do that!"

"Uh-huh. Oh." Yato looked back over his shoulder and fixed Bishamon with a look. "Izanami didn't seem too interested in you before, but be careful, yeah? Just in case."

Bishamon blinked at him with a funny expression twisting her features and then nodded. "Yeah. You too."

Yato was already walking away again. He didn't know what to say to Yukine, whose mood was impossible to read, and Yukine himself seemed uncertain of how to handle the situation and stayed quiet. They headed back towards Kofuku's shrine in silence, walking side by side but a million miles apart.

Yato was trying very hard to block out what had just happened, but he could still hear Sakura crying in his head and it ate away at his frazzled nerves. He couldn't afford to go back and drown himself in old memories, but how could he not?

"It won't happen," Yukine said finally. His voice was solid and real, dragging Yato back and anchoring him to the present. "I won't let her take you back."

A faint smile ghosted across Yato's face despite everything. "I know. Don't worry so much. This was just an unlucky coincidence."

"I'm sorry about Sakura." Yukine gnawed on his lip and stared at the ground, his hair shadowing his eyes. "I know I can't… But…"

Yato blinked at him blankly for a few seconds before grasping what the kid was trying and failing to articulate. It was a different kind of protectiveness than he was used to. Yukine could be exceedingly protective when it came to physical threats, but he had rarely touched any emotional scars. Mostly because Yato tried not to share those, and maybe also because Yukine didn't understand how to fix such things and they made him uncomfortable to start with. It was sweet, in a way.

"All shinki are different," Yato said quietly. "Each one is unique and special. You couldn't take her place even if you tried, just like no one could take yours. But you don't have to. Just be yourself. That's enough."

Yukine snuck a look up through his eyelashes, and his lips trembled. "I…"

Yato grinned. "Didn't I already tell you? You're my dearest bundle of joy and intense aggravation."

Yukine turned red as a tomato. "Gross. You're impossible."

Yato huffed out a laugh like a sigh. He wasn't okay, not really. He was still shaken and grieving and more than a little broken.

But with Yukine and Hiyori, he could build new, better memories to balance the old, painful ones, even if they wouldn't magically heal all the wounds he'd sustained over the centuries. They couldn't make Yato whole again—it was much too late for that and he was far too broken to somehow jigsaw all the pieces back together like nothing had happened—but they could help him survive through it and find some kind of happiness and learn how to really live again. He thought—hoped—that Sakura would be pleased by that.

So for now, he let Yukine ground him in the present. There would always be time to mourn, but for now he wanted to appreciate what was left.

Still, there was a tingle of unease running along his spine. The feeling that it wasn't quite over.

* * *

 **Note: The original idea was some unfounded, self-indulgent musing about what could happen if a Sakura-lookalike showed up in ayakashi form courtesy of Izanami, and I was going to leave it here like a one-shot. But then I made an actual plot, so we've got whole chapters and everything :O**

 **Title comes from the good old "fire and brimstone", of course :3**


	2. Chapter 2

**Note: Thanks for the reviews lol Glad to provide you with some more angst ;) (And LOL Aofery. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up, ha ha.)**

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

* * *

When Hiyori traipsed up to Kofuku's shrine, Yukine was already sitting out in front. She almost walked right past him because her phone was absolutely _exploding_ , thanks to Yato and a barrage of texts that had started two hours ago and continued since then without ceasing, and she was typing out a quick message to let him know she was here. He was awfully excited at the prospect of a group outing to a new restaurant that had just opened across town—an outing that Hiyori would end up paying for, no doubt—and it was such a benign idea for him that Hiyori was a bit worried that he had other crazy plans cooking in his brain for afterwards.

Her feet slowed to a stop, and her finger hovered above the send button. Yukine was sitting with his back to the front of the shrine, his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them as he frowned down at the ground. Hiyori eyed him for a few seconds and then turned off the screen, ignoring the chime of another incoming text.

"Yukine?" she asked. "Are you alright?"

He started and looked up. "Oh, yeah. I'm fine." He laughed a little awkwardly. "Just hiding from Yato while we wait for you. He's going crazy in there."

"Did something happen?" Hiyori slipped her phone into her pocket and walked over to sit down beside him. "Is he still watching you like a hawk?"

Yato had been sticking to Yukine and Hiyori closer than glue since the incident last week, insisting on doing things together whenever possible. Yukine had it even worse than Hiyori, since he lived with the god. And although Yato seemed as exuberant as ever and never voiced a reason for his sudden heightened clinginess, it was obvious that he was feeling excessively protective of his shinki these days.

"Yeah." Yukine smiled thinly and looked back down at the ground. "And it's even worse than usual because he was having nightmares last night. He talks and moves around in his sleep so much that it's kind of hard to miss. He was saying her name a lot and… I don't know, but it didn't sound good.

"I think he's so hyped up because he's trying to distract himself. You know, he gets all crazy and clingy sometimes when he's trying to avoid thinking about stuff." He raised his eyebrows as Hiyori's phone chimed twice more. "That's probably why he's being such a nuisance, by the way."

Hiyori ran her fingers over the hard lump in her pocket as it vibrated and chimed again. It made sense. Yato was the kind of person who often seemed to get more and more frenetic the more upset he got, until he ran himself into the ground and had to face whatever he was running away from. And he hadn't stopped to breathe since the incident.

He had only given Hiyori the barest skeleton of what had happened, nothing more than "Izanami sent an ayakashi spelled with a glamour to try tricking me back down to Yomi, but I killed it," but she had gotten the full story from Yukine. Yukine had recounted every action and word in excruciating detail once Yato had left the room. Yato hadn't expressed any obvious lingering effects after how out of sorts he had been that first day, but if Hiyori had any doubts about how bad it had been, all she had to do was see how shaken up Yukine was about the whole thing.

And knowing what she knew about Sakura, she could feel Yato's heartbreak even if he didn't show it. She wanted to do something to comfort him, but she didn't know how to explain that she had somehow seen a handful of his memories shortly after his return from the underworld. On the one hand, the encounter convinced her that those really had been memories and she wasn't just going crazy, but she wasn't sure what Yato's reaction would be if she told him. She just knew that he wouldn't want her to have seen those things and glimpsed his most private memories. And she couldn't tell Yukine what she knew, because Sakura's horrible fate was fresh in her mind and she couldn't risk that happening to him.

All in all, she felt pretty helpless.

"I'm sure he'll be okay," she said gently. "Just give him a few days to collect himself." She felt bad as the words left her mouth, knowing that centuries hadn't healed those wounds and a few days was unlikely to do anything but bury them again. But Yato was tough and resilient. He would be alright. "How are _you_ holding up?"

Yukine hugged his knees closer and dropped his chin onto them as he stared out at the street. "I'm okay."

"Are you okay with, um…?" Hiyori cleared her throat awkwardly. "You know, him being so preoccupied with her?"

Yukine could get a little weird and insecure when it came to Yato's other shinki, although maybe it was mostly just stemming from the insecurity Nora's continued presence had evoked. He had seemed more relaxed since Yato had released her, but Hiyori had the feeling that he preferred being the god's only shinki in every sense of the word.

"Hm?" Yukine frowned as he cut a glance in her direction. "I'm not going to hold it against him that he had another shinki a long time ago that he loved enough to mourn."

Hiyori turned red and stumbled over her words as she tried to cover up her misstep. "S-sorry, I…ah… I didn't mean…"

"In a way, it's kind of good, I guess," Yukine mumbled as he returned his gaze to the ground. "I mean, if he loved her that much, she must have loved him too, right? It's good that he had someone who cared about him when the only other people he had were his dad and Nora. At least he had _someone_ , even if it didn't end well."

She swallowed. Sakura was probably even more important than Yukine realized, both for giving Yato the love he needed and teaching him a different way of life. But the way Yato had been manipulated into bringing about her demise would have broken him in a way Yukine couldn't understand without knowing the whole story.

"I suppose so," Hiyori said.

"And he must've loved her a lot, you know? I don't…" Yukine hunched his shoulders around his ears. "I've never seen him cry like that. And he knew it was an ayakashi, but he was still going to… To still love someone that much after centuries is…really powerful, I guess. Even if it has to hurt a lot. I can't take that away even if I wanted to. I don't really know what I'm supposed to do, though. It feels like part of his life that I have no place in."

Hiyori smiled a little sadly. Yukine had really grown up a lot. She knew this wasn't easy on him either, watching Yato, normally so indestructible and unfazed, fall apart and then cover it up like it had never happened. Yukine took his purpose of protecting Yato very seriously, but it was hard to protect someone from something that had happened centuries ago and left scars that ran deeper than the skin.

"Yato's tough," Hiyori said. "He'll be okay. I'm sure you're helping lots. You're always there for him, and he likes having you around. All you have to do is be there."

Yukine was quiet for a long moment, with only the incessant chiming of Hiyori's phone to break the stillness, and dug his fingers into his legs. "Speaking of which," he said finally, "you should probably tell him that you're here. He's really set on this outing."

Hiyori nodded. "If you're ready. But if you ever need anything, if you're having a hard time or anything, you can always talk to me."

He offered her a wan smile. "Thanks, Hiyori."

She nodded again and pulled out her phone. Ignoring the long list of unread messages, she sent the text she had failed to send before. She had about three seconds to collect herself before the door flew open beside her and Yato stuck his head out.

"Heeey, Hiyori!" he chirped. "About time you showed up. I can't find Yuki– Oh, you were out here?" Tension she hadn't even noticed until its disappearance melted off his face and out of the stiffness of his shoulders as he spotted Yukine sitting next to her. "Wonderful, we're finally all here. Let's go!"

Hiyori stood, Yukine following suit beside her, and barely had time to stick her phone back in her pocket before Yato swooped down on them. Flinging his arms around their shoulders despite the very real threat of a jungle savate and other unspecified maiming, he steered them down the street and chattered cheerfully. Hiyori let it go for a few minutes before shrugging his arm off, and she resisted her normal impulse to hit him out of considerations for what Yukine had told her about the nightmares. Yukine himself was fairly subdued and escaped Yato's grasp without putting up a fuss.

"How did that thing with your friends go yesterday?" Yato asked, throwing a grin in Hiyori's direction as he strolled down the sidewalk. "Have fun?"

Hiyori was glad she had planned her outing with Ami and Yama for yesterday instead of today. Yato's clingy mood would have been a lot harder to handle.

"Yeah, we had a great time," she said. "A new amusement park opened up. They have a lot of great rides and things. Maybe the three of us could go next weekend!"

Yato's eyes shone bright with skepticism. "No capypers?"

Hiyori sighed but smiled a little tiredly despite herself. "No capypers, but it's fun anyway."

"I don't see the point," Yato muttered. "We could just go back to Capyper Land instead."

Hiyori hid her instinctive wince. She had never quite gotten over Fujisaki's unwanted kiss there, and it had only been a thousand times worse when she discovered he was actually Yato's father. She wouldn't mind going again with Yato and Yukine someday—and could hopefully enjoy it without making a nuisance of herself like last time—but maybe not quite yet.

"Not everything has to have capypers," Yukine said, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, capypers aren't–" He caught Hiyori's warning glare and subsided with a cough.

"Capypers aren't _what_?" Yato asked.

"Uh… Capypers aren't going to be in the restaurant either, but you want to go anyway. There can be fun things without them. I think it would be a lot of fun to go to a theme park."

Yato tilted his head as he regarded Yukine with searching eyes and then brightened considerably. "Well, if you want to go, then we can go! Even if there aren't capypers."

He ruffled Yukine's hair and grinned, while Yukine flushed and shied away. Hiyori smiled as she watched them. They made a cute little family.

"Sounds like a plan!" she said.

"Whatever," Yukine grumbled, drawing a snicker from Yato.

"Anyway," said Yato, "we–" He broke off suddenly and stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk. An uneasy look passed over his face as he glanced around.

"Yato?" Hiyori asked. "Is everything alright?"

He hesitated a moment longer before shaking his head. "Yeah, just– Look out!" His gaze snapped downward, and he bit out a curse as he lunged at Hiyori and shoved her hard.

"Hey!" she cried as she stumbled to the side and toppled over on the ground.

She whipped back around as a loud rumbling, cracking sound split the air, and caught a glimpse of Yato and Yukine disappearing into the jagged fissure that suddenly ate through the sidewalk. Yukine's startled cry echoed back up.

Hiyori stared in shock, unable to believe her eyes. She scrambled over to the crack, which was already sealing up at a rapid rate. A vent? No ayakashi had poured out, but what else could it be? And with the events of last week… Yato had assured them that should be the end of it and Izanami couldn't do much outside of Yomi, but Hiyori suddenly wondered if part of the reason he'd been keeping such a close eye on them was because he was afraid that the queen of the underworld might try something else after all.

The vent was so deep and black that she couldn't see her fallen friends in the void, and it was sealing itself up so quickly that it was almost nonexistent by the time her brain snapped out of its shock and remembered what she was supposed to do.

"Yaboku! Yukine!"

Concrete closed over the hole, solid and unrelenting. Nothing happened.

Hiyori shook her head in denial, panic and desperation gripping her heart. "Yaboku!" she cried, pounding on the sidewalk with her fists. "Yukine!"

The ground didn't budge, and the only thing she accomplished was bruising her hands. How could she have been so _stupid_? If she had just called them a few seconds earlier, they would be safe. But she had frozen and wasted precious moments waiting for her brain to catch up to the situation, and now the vent was closed. She had wasted her chance to use a soul call to bring them back.

"Are you alright?" asked a middle-aged woman, leaning over a little to get a look at Hiyori's face.

Her eyes were wide with concern, and Hiyori started in surprise and looked around to see that people were giving her strange looks and a wide berth as they hurried past. Heat flooded her cheeks as she realized she'd just made a spectacle of herself falling to her hands and knees in the middle of the sidewalk and yelling at the ground. For half a second, she wished she had ditched her body beforehand. And then immediately berated herself for worrying about something so silly when Yato and Yukine had just fallen into the underworld with no way out.

"Fine," she squeaked, jumping to her feet and brushing the grit off her knees. "I just…uh…" Her eyes widened. "I have to go!"

She spun on her heel and raced back down the street, leaving the concerned passerby to stare after her in confusion.

If she wanted to do a soul call, she needed a vent. And if she needed a vent, she needed Kofuku and Daikoku.

Her heartbeat pounded loud and fast in her ears as she flew back to the shrine, thudding against her ribcage in time to the beat of her feet slapping the pavement. She needed to rescue her friends as soon as possible. Yato had faced Yomi before and come back a mess. He had never said much about his time there, but his eyes had been haunted long after the wounds slashed across his skin had finally faded. And now Yukine was trapped there as well, to face it with him. Hiyori would do anything to steal them back from Izanami.

"Kofuku!" she cried past her heaving breaths as she slammed the door open and stumbled inside a few steps before bracing her hands on her knees. "Daikoku!"

"Hmmm? Hiyorin? You're back early. Is–?" Kofuku stuck her head around the corner and blinked at the panting girl. "Hiyorin? What's wrong?"

"Yato," Hiyori wheezed past gasping breaths. "Yukine. Vent…fell… Need…need you…to open a vent."

"A vent?" Kofuku asked with a frown. "I'm not really supposed to open vents."

"Calm down," Daikoku added as he stepped out of the doorway behind Kofuku. "Take a breath and tell us what happened. Are you okay?"

Hiyori sucked in a few deep breaths until she remembered how to speak again, and then recounted the story in a jumble of panicked rambling that was still disjointed but more intelligible this time.

"You have to open a vent," she repeated. Trembling fingers clutched the fabric of her skirts at her sides. "I need to do a soul call again to bring them back."

"It closed up that fast?" Kofuku asked. Worry shone bright in her eyes as she exchanged a look with Daikoku. "She might be sealing off the underworld again. We had trouble keeping a vent open last time too."

"I only need a few seconds now that I know how to call them."

Kofuku nodded. "Right. Let's go. We need to get Yato-chan and Yukki back as soon as possible."

Hiyori agreed wholeheartedly and was already out the door and halfway down the street before Daikoku called after her.

"Where are you going?"

She turned back, rocking impatiently on her heels. "It happened this way."

He shook his head. "We can't open a vent in the middle of the city. If ayakashi start pouring out, we don't want it to be right in the middle of a whole crowd of people. We'll go outside town."

"But–"

"Places closer to the Far Shore work differently," Kofuku said. "We can call Yato-chan and Yukki from wherever we open a vent. It doesn't have to be at the same place where they fell."

Hiyori wavered, every muscle in her body straining to run back to where her friends had disappeared, but then hurried back to Kofuku and Daikoku. They had a point about intentionally opening vents in the city, even if Izanami might be closing the vents too quickly for ayakashi to escape. Better safe than sorry.

She followed Kofuku and Daikoku as they raced in the other direction, on the shortest path to the city limits. They made it several streets over before Kofuku came to a screeching stop. Hiyori nearly ran straight into her before stumbling to a hasty halt.

"What are you doing?" she asked. "We need to go!"

"Let's get Bisha since we're here." Kofuku pointed to the shrine they were about to run past and hurried across the street to step inside.

"Bishamon?" Hiyori asked. She itched to _run_ , and Kofuku's sudden break was absolutely frustrating. They didn't have time for silly diversions now, not when Yato and Yukine were in trouble. "You can talk to her later. Come on, we need to hurry!"

"If the vent starts spitting out ayakashi, it would be a good idea to have her around to fight them off. I don't know if she's in, but it can't hurt to take a second to try." Kofuku drew in a deep breath and cupped her hands around her mouth as she called, "Bisha!"

"Anyway, she's the only other one of us who has been in Yomi," Daikoku added as he followed after Kofuku. "Don't know if it'll help anything, but it can't hurt."

Hiyori sighed and joined them, still bouncing impatiently on her heels. Their logic made sense—again—but she didn't want to wait on anything that wasn't strictly necessary to their rescue mission. Kofuku called for Bishamon a couple more times, and Hiyori was just about to suggest that they head on up to Takamagahara and drag the goddess out of her mansion when she finally appeared with Kazuma at her side, as usual.

"What is it?" she asked, eyeing the trio with narrowed eyes. "I'm in the middle of–"

"We're going to open a vent," Kofuku said with no trace of her usual bubbly smile on her face. "We're going to do it outside the city, but we thought we'd see if you wanted to come along to do some damage control."

Bishamon's eyebrows nearly jumped right up off her forehead. "You're going to open a vent? Absolutely not. What are you thinking? You can't just–"

"Yato-chan and Yukki are in trouble."

"Yato is _always_ in trouble. What does that have to do with–?"

"A vent opened right underneath them," Hiyori interrupted, willing Bishamon to listen. "They fell. I would have too, but Yato pushed me and… The vent closed before I could call them back. We need to open another one so I can do a soul call."

Bishamon's irritation evaporated like the morning dew under a hot sun, and concern darkened her eyes as she and Kazuma exchanged a meaningful look.

"Izanami," said Kazuma.

Bishamon shook her head slowly. "It has to be, after that… _thing_. She was obviously looking for a way to get him back into Yomi, I just didn't realize she could interfere so much with the surface."

"We have to hurry," Hiyori said, shifting on her heels and dancing a couple steps down the street.

"Agreed," Bishamon said in an unusually solemn tone. "There are ways to force people to stay in Yomi forever, soul call or not. Just let me grab a few shinki in case we do have to fight."

She disappeared before Hiyori could protest.

"What does that mean?" Hiyori asked. "How…?"

Kazuma shrugged and frowned at the ground. "For one, eating any of Yomi's food will trap you down there forever. And Izanami rules the underworld absolutely. She's impossible to fight and controls every aspect of that place. If she doesn't want you to leave… Well, it's extremely difficult to escape." He noticed Hiyori's wide-eyed anxiety and offered her a wan smile that might have been meant to be reassuring. "But as long as they don't eat anything, a soul call should work. They'll be fine."

Hiyori sure hoped so, but her companions were all looking rather grim in their determination, which only served to further unsettle her. Every second Bishamon was gone felt like nails on Hiyori's skin, pins and needles up and down her spine. Each one was a second they could be using to pull Yato and Yukine out of Izanami's hell. Yukine would be so scared, trapped in the dark in a place no child belonged, and Yato… Well, Hiyori wasn't sure what Yato would face, exactly, but all past evidence pointed to something dark and painful.

Bishamon shimmered back into view with Kuraha by her side in lion form. She carried her whip and pistols and wore the armor she'd worn into Yomi last time.

"Better safe than sorry," she said when she caught Hiyori looking. "Come, Chouki. Let's go."

She was already hopping onto Kuraha's back and urging him forward as Kazuma disappeared, and Hiyori rushed after her in a tangle of limbs. The group moved fast, but Hiyori still felt every second ticking in her chest like a bomb waiting to explode. Everything would be fine, she knew. All she had to do was–

"Wait," she gasped as she pelted around a corner and looked between the two goddesses with horrified eyes. "Can you soul call a shinki?"

"Of course," Bishamon said dismissively, not slowing. "Why wouldn't–? _Oh_." A small crease appeared between her eyes as she exchanged a look with Kofuku.

That wasn't what Hiyori wanted to hear. She had been hoping Bishamon could provide a god's reassurance that everything would work just fine.

She really knew very little about soul calls, although theoretically they should work on shinki. But to make it work, you had to call someone's _true_ name. It was why summoning Yato back hadn't worked until she'd figured out 'Yaboku'. But a shinki's true name was their god's greatest secret, and she had seen what had happened to Sakura when it was revealed. What name was needed for a shinki's soul call? Their true name or the name their god had given them? Hiyori had no way of knowing Yukine's true name, and certainly wouldn't risk calling it even if she did.

Nora had gone to Yomi with Yato but hadn't come back with him. But she had reappeared later, so she must have escaped somehow. Hiyori didn't know if it was through a soul call—although it made sense since Yato's father was human and only humans could perform one—but it was a distinct possibility. And Nora was a _stray_. Which of her many names would have called her back? Would any of them do, as long as they were written on her skin and bound to her soul? Would only certain ones work? Would it have to be the name that had been bestowed upon her during her life? And if the last, did that mean she wouldn't be affected by her true name like Sakura?

Hiyori's heart sank like a stone. What if she _couldn't_ save Yukine?

"Why wouldn't it work?" Daikoku asked.

Kofuku shook her head and whipped around a corner. "It will work. It _has_ to."

"We can at least try," Bishamon said grimly. "I'm sure it will be fine. But if it doesn't work, we'll find another way."

Hiyori swallowed hard and picked up the pace again. It was going to work. It had to. Bishamon's shinki had all come back with her last time, so as long as Yato was wielding Sekki, none of this should even be a problem. She was probably worrying over nothing.

"Now!" she wheezed as they broke free of the city limits.

"A little further," Kofuku said.

She dragged them along until she was satisfied, then summoned Kokki and snapped the fan shut to stab at the earth in a swift, vicious movement. The ground cracked apart, and Hiyori was already on her knees in the dirt before Kofuku stepped back.

"Yaboku!" she called into the crevasse. "Yukine!"

Everything was still and silent, with only her own voice and pounding heartbeat echoing in her ears. No ayakashi emerged, no gloom or fierce whirlwinds. And neither did Yato and Yukine.

"It didn't bore all the way into Yomi?" Kofuku asked, her eyes widening in disbelief. The gash in the earth was already sealing itself back together at a rapid rate, but the soul call should have worked—if the vent had broken through to the underworld, of which there was no indication. "Impossible!"

"Try again!" Hiyori said. "If you keep doing it in the same spot, I'm sure you can break through."

Kofuku was already thrusting Kokki downward again, at the spot where every trace of her first attempt had already been obliterated.

"Yukine! Yaboku!"

Another half-formed vent slashed through the ground, but it was healing before Kofuku could try again. No matter how many times she tried, no matter how many times Hiyori called, the vent never reached the underworld and Yato and Yukine never appeared.

"I don't understand," Kofuku said through tears Hiyori hadn't realized she'd been shedding. "I can't bore through. And every time I try, it's shallower and shallower."

"Just keep trying," Hiyori rasped, her voice scraping along a throat rubbed hoarse from screaming.

"Hiyorin…"

"Izanami has total control of Yomi," Bishamon said grimly from where she was watching a few steps away. "She forced Kofuku's vents closed more quickly than usual before, and now it seems like she's even more determined to keep them out. She knows we were rescued with soul calls last time, so she's working to prevent that from being possible again. I didn't realize she could stop it entirely."

"We have to keep trying," Hiyori said, her voice wavering. "All we need is for her control to lapse for a couple seconds, and I can call them."

"Maybe we should go to Yomi's entrance," Bishamon mused.

Hiyori stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "Why? It was sealed last time—Yukine and I checked before finding the vent Ebisu opened. Izanami would have sealed it again."

"I'm sure, but if anything happens that could give us the opportunity to sneak in that way, we'll miss it if we aren't there."

"It's too far! Why waste the time going there when we should be trying to–?"

"We're increasing our odds," Bishamon said evenly. "We'll at least have another option to look into. There are only two ways we can get them out: manage to open a vent and do a soul call or find a way in through the entrance. There are only two ways they can get out: find a way to open a vent like Ebisu or sneak out the entrance. All of those options are currently blocked, but we give ourselves better chances if we leave them all open. If they find a way to make a vent and escape that way, they could be spit out anywhere. If they find a way to get out through the entrance, that's where they'll end up. We can try making vents and doing soul calls from anywhere, but we can only watch for an opening at the entrance if we're _at_ the entrance. That's the only place we could possibly meet up or explore that option."

"I agree with Bisha," Kofuku said, swiping her sleeve across her nose. "We aren't having any luck right now anyway. We can try again near the entrance."

"We won't leave anyone trapped in Yomi," Bishamon promised. Steel glinted in her eyes and whispered along the edge of her voice. "Not even that stupid bastard Yato."

Hiyori nodded, but that steely edge had flaked off the edge of her determination. She was frightened and feeling terribly, terribly hopeless. But there was no way she would give up, no way she would leave Yato and Yukine to rot away in the underworld.

She was absolutely going to call them back.

* * *

 **Note: Tbh, this chapter is more for set-up and bridging purposes, but it had to be done. All the fun stuff comes next :D**


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: Thanks for the reviews :) About the questions on updates... I used to keep a pretty consistent posting schedule, but a while back I posted a reaaally long story and it started stressing me out, so I picked up a way more flexible schedule so that I'm posting when I want to rather than when I feel pressured to. I usually post chapters within three to seven days. Sorry X)**

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

* * *

Yato crashed into the ground after an impossibly long fall. Hard, slick stone scraped against his skin, and the impact jarred his injured arm and sent pain zipping up every nerve. It had been healing nicely up until now, but his entire upper arm and shoulder were throbbing again.

Yukine's wail cut off with a sharp exhale as he slammed into Yato, who was ground into the stone floor under the shinki's weight. The air was driven from his lungs again as his forehead thunked against the ground and his back bowed where Yukine was draped across him in a gasping puddle.

A wheezing cough rattled in Yato's throat as he caught his breath. The pleasant aroma of decay and fetid, dank air burned his nostrils and scraped down his throat. It was distressingly familiar.

"Ow," he moaned. "You alright, Yukine?"

"S-sorry," Yukine stammered between rapid breaths. The sound of his hyperventilating was loud and harsh in the stagnant stillness of the air, and Yato's chest constricted as the shinki's fear wrapped strings around his heart and sent it tap dancing along his ribs like a crazed puppet. "Wh-what–? What happened? Where…?"

He scrambled off Yato's back, and the god sat up with a sigh of relief. Yato squinted against the gloom shrouding the cavern—undoubtedly one of the many, admittedly good, reasons Yukine looked like he wanted to curl up in a ball and pull the covers over his head—and glanced around, but he didn't see or hear Hiyori anywhere. Good. She must still be on the surface. The underworld wasn't any place for humans, and keeping her alive down here and getting her out again would be far more difficult than finding a way to get Yukine out. Also, having her up top to do a soul call considerably increased their chances of escape.

"Welcome to Yomi," Yato said as he picked himself up off the ground and held down his left hand to pull Yukine up with his uninjured arm. "I guess you'll get the tour today."

Yukine's eyes glinted in the twilit gloom, wide and frightened. " _Yomi?_ "

"How nice of you to drop in," said a new voice, low and feminine.

Yato clenched his jaw and turned on his heel in a smooth, unhurried motion. Fear hadn't quite caught up to him yet, and Yukine already had enough for the both of them. No, he was seething with a quiet anger. In some small corner of his mind he had been half-expecting something like this, but dragging Yukine into it was going much too far.

Izanami glided out of the shadows all by her lonesome, although Yato knew that would change the instant he upset her and she lost it again. But she was going to try charming them first, just like before. A delicate glamour was laid overtop her graying bones and mess of stringy hair.

Unsurprisingly, she had taken on the appearance of Hiyori again, but Yato's teeth ground together with the gritty scraping of bone on bone as he noted that more elements of Sakura had been incorporated into the illusion: the cut of the hair, the shape of the eyes, the angles of the face. He supposed that shouldn't be a surprise either, since Sakura had very much been on his mind recently. Maybe he shouldn't blame Izanami directly since her glamour was picking and choosing from his own mind, but he very much did.

"Hi- _Hiyori?_ " Yukine squeaked in disbelief. No surprise there. Hiyori was one of the people he felt most comfortable with too, which meant he would be seeing something similar to Yato.

Yato stepped in front of Yukine protectively, and small hands clutched at the back of his jacket.

He ran his unfriendly gaze over the goddess's glamour. It held little power over him anymore, and it didn't leave him unsettled the same way the ayakashi's had. This was undoubtedly Izanami wearing someone else's face, and she knew nothing about the faces she borrowed. Underneath the mask, it was still her.

The ayakashi was more unsettling because it was an empty vessel filled with his own knowledge and feelings about someone he loved. It had become a model of Sakura by pulling bits and pieces out of his mind to create a frighteningly lifelike likeness, whereas Izanami knew nothing about Hiyori or Sakura and borrowed only their physical appearance from his memories. She still acted like herself instead of like them, and that made it easier to keep the distance between them.

But that didn't mean Yato liked that she dared to wear their faces. Hot anger coiled tight and low in his belly, while resentment simmered like embers waiting to ignite.

"Absolutely not," he said. "This is the glamour I was talking about. She takes on the guise of someone you feel comfortable with so that you'll stay with her. Meet Izanami."

"Izanami," Yukine repeated in a faint voice. An ache started up behind Yato's eyes, sharp and throbbing.

"I'm going to ignore the horrible pun," Yato told Izanami coldly. "Visits are always fun, but it's not nice to overstay your welcome, so we'll be taking our leave shortly."

Izanami pouted. "But you only just arrived. At least have something to eat." She reached into the shadows and pulled out a platter piled high with steaming rice and fish to offer them.

"No." Yato knew well what hid beneath that illusion, and he could almost smell the cloyingly sweet stench of rot tickling his nostrils. "I thought I told you to stay away from my shinki."

Izanami tilted her head, her gaze sliding past Yato to catch on some stray bit of Yukine poking out from behind him. Yato bared his teeth at her and shifted to conceal his kid from view as best he could.

"He looks like such a sweet little thing," she murmured. Her eyes widened ever so slightly as her pupils dilated in a strange way that was jarring against the rest of the glamour. "The more friends, the better."

"Send him back," Yato said sharply. "He has nothing to do with this, and he was never part of the deal. I won't negotiate with you unless you let him go."

"What?" Fingers tightened in Yato's jacket, pulling the fabric taut. "I won't leave without–!"

"You care," Izanami observed. Her face lit up in a smile. "He's your friend?"

"Something like that," Yato muttered. _More_ than that, but she didn't need to know that.

Her eyebrows drew together in a puzzled expression. "Then why do you want him to leave? Shouldn't you want your friends to stay with you?"

Yato watched her with a mixture of pity and disgust. "I see why you have such a hard time making friends. Of course I want him to stay with me, but not down _here_. You're supposed to want what's best for your friends, even if sometimes that means letting them go."

"I don't understand," Izanami said, shaking her head. "Friends are supposed to stay with you _forever_."

There was a feverish gleam to her eyes that Yato didn't like, and he saw no point in arguing philosophy or morals with her. She was more than a little insane after all these centuries of isolation, and probably long past the point of saving.

"Just send him back and we can talk."

" _Yato_ ," Yukine hissed. "What are you doing? You can't stay down here without protection."

Yato ignored him. He was more interested in Izanami's response, in seeing where her fragile state of mind was right now. He doubted she would give him such an easy out, but it couldn't hurt to try. He was going to get Yukine out of this mess one way or another, no matter what it took.

"More friends would be nice, but the deal was for you," Izanami said with a sigh. "If you stay, he can go."

Yato's breath escaped his lips in an almost silent whoosh of air. A sigh of relief he hadn't realized he had been holding.

This was better than he had expected. He could buy Yukine's way out of here now, and then he just had to stick it out until Hiyori had the chance to do a soul call.

"Fine," he said. "Let him go and we'll chat."

" _Yato_ ," Yukine said again. He tugged on the god's jacket hard. An aching pain was working its way out from Yato's heart.

Izanami's smile had returned, wider than ever. "Not so fast, little god. I'm on to your tricks. Your friend can leave… _after_ you have a meal with me. We wouldn't want you changing your mind and running off again, would we?"

She drifted closer, abandoning the far side of the cavern to offer Yato the plate again. Yato stayed defiantly still despite every nerve in his body twitching with the urge to step back, and Yukine's fear increased exponentially as he clung to him.

"What are we going to do?" Yukine whispered.

"How do I know you'd keep your end of the bargain?" Yato asked, stalling for time. He had no intention of giving up this early, not until he had exhausted all his other options, but he had very little bargaining power at the moment.

"Just because you break the deals you make doesn't mean that I will," Izanami said. For a second, her voice slithered and clicked like an ayakashi's underneath the glamour before settling back into Hiyori's. "I'll release the child if you stay and be my friend. It won't be so bad, my dear Yato. It will be _so_ nice to have company. And you can even keep your friend, if you want. What did you call him? Yukine?"

Her free hand dipped into her robes and emerged with a slender brush held loosely between her fingers and a scrap of paper that she pressed against the plate. The brush swept across the page in smooth, well-practiced strokes, and the familiar symbol of an eye stayed inked there for a moment before peeling away from the parchment.

"Yuki," said the goddess in a breath like a sigh.

A quick flash of an otherworldly blue-green was the only glimpse Yato got of the ayakashi before the glamour settled over it and he found himself staring at Yukine. A strangled sort of sound gurgled in the back of his throat.

"You wouldn't leave me here, would you?" The thing that looked like Yukine tilted its head, soulless amber eyes boring into the god. It took the plate from Izanami. "It's alright," it said in Yukine's voice. "I'll stay with you."

Izanami laughed in delight. "Ta-da! Now you can keep him!"

"Oh, that is _so_ wrong," Yukine said. "Creepy. Get my face off that thing. Hey, Yato? Snap out of it. That's obviously not me. I'm right here."

Izanami clicked her tongue in a way that made her skeletal teeth rattle out of sight in the skull buried beneath the magic. "Silly child. It _is_ you, in all the ways that matter. Isn't that true, my dear Yato? It has his name, his face, and everything you fill him with. Everything you love about him is there. It's the him you know. Oh, we can make lots of friends! You do have other friends, don't you? We can bring them all to life down here to keep us company!"

Yato was transfixed by the monster masquerading as his kid. The horrible thing was that Izanami was right, in a way, even if she was also wrong.

"Don't do this to me again," he mumbled.

He was on guard and knew better than to let the fetch rattle him after last time, but it was _looking_ at him with Yukine's eyes.

 _Pull yourself together, you fool_ , he told himself harshly.

This thing might look like Yukine, talk like Yukine, act like Yukine, _be_ the spitting image of everything Yukine was to Yato, but it was still an ayakashi under Izanami's control. The Yukine that mattered was still clinging to Yato like the frightened child he was.

"I'm right here," Yukine snapped.

"It's dark," Not-Yukine whispered, trapping Yato's focus with his glittering glass eyes as he closed the distance between them and held out the plate of rotten food. "I'm scared, Yato. Don't leave me here."

Yato's breath hitched in his throat. Yes, he could feel Yukine's fear like chilly fingers stroking his spine and an erratic pounding in his chest. But not _that_ Yukine's fear.

"No deal," he rasped, cutting a glare at the twisted smile on Izanami's face.

He whipped around, sending Yukine stumbling with a yelp, and grabbed the kid's arm.

"H-hey!" Yukine stammered.

Yato pressed his lips in a tight line and ran for the dark mouth of a tunnel dug into the wall of the cavern, dragging Yukine along with him. The shinki found his feet and started running as well.

Behind them, Izanami let out a screech of pure, unadulterated fury. "Where do you think you're going?" she screamed after them, the glamour dropping away to reveal the grating, hissing voice beneath. "You'll never escape here, little god!"

Yukine cried out and went crashing to the ground. He was jerked out of Yato's grasp, and the god's fingers closed on air.

"Yato!"

Yato spun around and spit out a curse as he saw the rope of stringy black hair wrapped tight around Yukine's ankle. The shinki's fingers scrabbled at the stony floor as Izanami dragged him back across the rough ground. Yukine looked back over his shoulder and blanched at the sight of the skeletal queen without the glamour covering her bones. His fear was starting to make Yato lightheaded.

"Sekki!"

Izanami howled in fury once more as Yukine shimmered and vanished, leaving the loop of troublesome hair to close on nothing. Yato was already running again before the swords slid into his hands.

"There's no way out, little god!" Izanami yelled. Her voice bounced off the walls and echoed back in a discordant jumble of hissing words.

"You okay?" Yato asked as he darted down the passage.

"Y-yeah, but… What the hell?" Yukine squeaked.

Yato huffed out a laugh past his wheezing breaths. With Yukine's panic tightening his chest and sending his heart into palpitations, he was already short of breath and in a world of pain.

"There's a reason she uses glamours," he said. His footsteps reverberated in the still, dank air as his boots slapped against stone. "Stay sharp. She'll send her ghouls after us."

"Gh- _ghouls?_ "

Yato didn't have breath to waste on explaining. A new tunnel opened up farther down the passage, and he turned off the main corridor. He was going to be hopelessly lost in a matter of minutes, but maybe it would help keep some of the baddies off their trail if he didn't stay on a straight path. Or maybe that was wishful thinking when Izanami and her goons had home field advantage and infested every inch of this underground prison.

A snakelike ayakashi lunged at him from the shadows, and he whipped up his dominant arm for a strike out of instinct. He regretted it instantly as pain clamped its jaws around his shoulder and went searing down his arm, but he managed to slash the sword across the beast before his arm fell back to his side limply. The handle felt like it was slipping from his grasp, and he tightened his fingers reflexively even though they were feeling numb and nerveless again.

"Are you okay?" Yukine asked.

"Fine."

Yato rushed headlong through the maze of tunnels, now more careful to use the other blade when taking out troublesome ayakashi. To be honest, Yukine's emotions were doing more damage than the injury, but it wasn't like Yato was going to tell the kid that and he didn't have time to try fixing anything right now.

He kept an ear open for sounds of pursuit, but the scrabbling and clattering sounds and echoes of Izanami's haunting voice had faded now. He was not foolish enough to think that meant they were out of danger, especially when he turned the corner to find a stretch of tunnel covered in several inches of black water. He skidded to a stop, the toes of his boots just touching the edge of the underground pool and sending small ripples skittering across the glassy surface.

"Well, shit," he muttered.

"What?" Yukine asked, his anxiety ratcheting up another notch. "What is it?"

"Izanami's favorites have this bad habit of popping up from water. Not that they aren't dangerous elsewhere too, but the water is their territory. Just…keep an eye out."

Yato took off again, boots splashing through the stagnant water as he raced down the passage. His heart thumped loudly against his ribcage and climbed into his throat like a heavy lump clogging his airway as every nerve in his body tensed in preparation for the feeling of clawed hands wrapping around his feet and dragging him down into the murky pool. His body hummed with anticipation, and he flew across the water with such speed that his boots barely touched the ground before taking off again. He wasn't going to make it _easy_ for the ghouls to catch him.

He made it a couple hundred feet before the hands began snatching at the air just shy of his ankles. The dark-skinned women with their glowing eyes and sharp teeth rose from the water all around him, rivulets sliding off their blue-gray skin as they reached out and filled the air with a chorus of chittering hisses.

"What are _those_?" Yukine demanded, and the air fled Yato's lungs as the shinki's fear sent his heart into spasms again.

Yato pushed past Yukine's panic ruthlessly, having no time to spare for the child and his comfort. If he made one misstep, lost one second, he could be dragged down into the water and pulled back up right in front of Izanami again.

At least, some hysterical little corner of his mind thought, they weren't trying to eat him like when they'd pounced on Bishamon.

A hand closed around his foot, and he went crashing down into the water with a sharp cry. The once still pool was roiling with lithe, inhuman bodies that churned the water into a frothing frenzy. He coughed and gagged as he fought to keep his head out of the brackish liquid. Hands were clutching at him, at his arms and legs and clothing, and something sharp pierced his leg—holy shit, were they _biting_ him?—and Yukine was yelling something, and everything devolved into chaos made worse by the tightness of Yato's chest and the shortness of his breath and the frantic whirling of both his and Yukine's emotions.

But he was absolutely _not_ going to let these things drag him back to Izanami like this. He lashed out, feet kicking and swords slashing. A chorus of eerie chittering and screeching drowned out the splashing as he fought to free himself. Yukine was just as desperate, and seized control of the right blade with a vengeance once he realized Yato's movement was hindered by his injured arm. Yato choked back a cry as the shinki's exuberance sent sharp pains tearing through his arm, but the stratagem did the trick and pushed back the onslaught on that side, albeit with a great deal more pain on Yato's part than was ideal.

"Sorry, sorry," Yukine was muttering like a mantra.

If Yato could breathe, he would tell the kid to shut up and relax. He needed Yukine's help on that front, while he didn't have the full range of movement he needed on his own.

He threw everything he had into hacking himself free and staggering back to his feet. The ghastly women clutched at him and something sharp ripped through his leg as he took off, but he ran and didn't look back. They followed, of course, and he had to slash at their grasping hands defensively.

He didn't want to stand and fight them. Instead, he ran. Ignoring the pain each step sent jarring through his left ankle and nibbling at his calf, he ran for all he was worth. He had to get just far enough ahead…

There! He skidded around a sharp bend, nearly losing his footing on the slippery stone. The tunnel split in two, with one branch following along the shallow underground river and the other rising at a mild incline to leave the water behind and disappear into the darkness. Yato had half a second to make his decision.

He ducked into the branch where water still pooled about his boots and bent down to run his hand frantically along the rocky ground. _Come on, come on… Yes!_ His fingers closed around a couple smooth, slippery pebbles, and he whipped his arm around and tossed them back down the path he hadn't chosen, where they clattered loudly against the stone floor. He inched deeper down the passage and pressed himself close to the wall, careful not to make any sound. When the horde of ghoulish women slithered and splashed into sight, he went still and held his breath.

"What are you doing?" Yukine whispered.

Here was to hoping the underworld denizens weren't very smart. They paused at the crossroads, but took off after the pebbles bouncing down the other corridor.

Yato didn't dare breathe until they had disappeared into the darkness, but then began hurrying down the tunnel as quietly as possible, placing his feet carefully to avoid any splashing. They were lucky the ghouls hadn't split up or stuck to their favored watery domain. If they had any brains at all, hopefully they would assume he wanted to get out of the water and would be tricked by the rolling pebbles for a few seconds more.

It wouldn't be long before they realized the deception, though, or at least realized that they heard neither footsteps nor splashing. It would be obvious that he had turned to stealth instead of speed.

He would take advantage of every second the subterfuge had bought him. He rushed through the web of darkened tunnels, jumping at every out-of-place sound and squelching along in his waterlogged boots. He wished Yukine would calm down so that he could breathe properly—the headlong rush and subsequent attempts to keep his breathing as quiet as possible were making him feel nauseous and a little lightheaded and like he was suffocating—but he could only expect so much of the kid and he could deal with it later. For now he just needed to get _away_ , and preferably out of the water.

When he finally found another branch that wasn't waterlogged, he took a moment to splash the stagnant water all over himself before wrinkling his nose at the stench and escaping to the drier tunnel.

"What's that for?" Yukine asked, speaking up for the first time in quite a while.

"It'll cover up my scent and make it seem like I belong here," Yato muttered. "Hopefully."

"That's…actually pretty smart."

Yato decided it probably wasn't a good idea to tell him it was something Nora had recommended he do last time he was down here. Yukine still got weird about anything involving her.

Yato wandered aimlessly for several minutes longer, limping grimly past the throbbing ache jarring through his legs at each step. He was hopelessly lost in the maze of tunnels, but it wasn't like he knew where he was going anyway. He was mostly just concerned with keeping quiet and listening for anything that might be sneaking up on him. All he ran across were a few more ayakashi, which he and Yukine made short work of.

He crept down a tunnel cast in pitch black shadows that drowned out even the gloomy half-light much of Yomi received. He couldn't even see his hand in front of his face, and his heart rattled against the cage of his ribs in desperation as his breathing choked and turned into harsh hyperventilating that bounced off the walls and echoed in the darkness.

He picked up the pace, because Yukine was going to give him a heart attack at this rate, poor kid. When the darkness began lightening back into a twilit gloom, Yato took a moment to check for anything sneaking up on them before deciding now was as good a time as any to try talking the kid down.

"Revert, Yukine."

"What is it?" Yukine asked, eyes darting about apprehensively as he materialized beside the god.

"I'm sorry, kiddo." Yato wrapped Yukine in a tight hug and tucked the shinki's head against his chest, away from the dark. He knew it was bad when Yukine squirmed a little and then went still instead of fighting his way out of the embrace. "You shouldn't have been involved at all… Father's always dragging me into messes and then I drag everyone else along with me.

"I know it's scary, but I've got you. I'm going to get you out of here if it's the last thing I do, so hold on, alright? You'll be safe before you know it."

He stroked Yukine's hair, and the shinki's hands clutched at the front of his jacket. The poor kid was trembling all over. Yato rocked back and forth on his heels, rocking the child along with him. It was reassuring for him too, to hold the small, warm body tight in his arms and know Yukine was okay.

He was going to do whatever it took to get Yukine out of here. This was his fault for getting caught up in Father's machinations and Ebisu's schemes, and he wasn't going to drag his kid down with him.

"Don't be stupid," Yukine mumbled into Yato's chest, his voice thick and quivery. His breaths were quick and fast, trapped in the small space between their bodies like frightened butterflies beating their tiny wings. "We're _both_ getting out of here. This is the _worst_ vacation destination you've taken me to yet."

Yato chuckled despite himself and a new surge of fondness warmed his battered heart. "That's the spirit. Chin up, kiddo." He pushed Yukine away to arm's length and rested his hands on the shinki's shoulders as he met large, teary amber eyes with solemn eyes of his own. "You're my partner. I'm counting on you. I know this sucks, but I need you to stay sharp and focused, okay? We can't afford to freak out or get distracted if we want to get out of here."

Yukine sniffled and scrubbed his sleeve across his eyes and nose. "I'm sorry. I'll keep focused."

"It's okay," Yato said gently. "Anyone would be scared." He smiled a little and patted the shinki on the head. "I know you can do it. You're a brave kid."

Yukine turned red and sputtered a little, and Yato laughed as quietly as possible. At least the kid was calming down a bit, if the easing knot in Yato's chest was anything to go by. Yato knew Yukine would do his best to keep his fear under control, and that was all he asked. He knew it couldn't all be quashed, but all he needed was for it to be toned down just enough that it wasn't putting them in serious jeopardy by doing a number on his body.

He bent to poke at the slashes ripped through his pants just above his boot. Blood welled from a set of parallel scratches torn through his skin, and puncture wounds that looked suspiciously like teeth marks littered the skin a little higher up.

"Are you okay?" Yukine asked. "How's your arm?"

"I think they _bit_ me!" Yato said indignantly. "Scratching is whatever, but _biting_? Honestly." Warm wetness was seeping through his jersey and dribbling down his arm from his shoulder, but he didn't give the injury more than a cursory poke. He must've ripped it back open, but it could wait. He couldn't afford to be distracted by his pain any more than by Yukine's fear. "It's fine."

He ghosted a little further down the tunnel on silent feet and poked his head around a bend, narrowing his eyes and sweeping the gloom to ensure the coast was clear before they started moving again.

"If you say so," Yukine said doubtfully. "What's the plan?"

"Plan? Don't get caught. Especially not by Izanami's hair. That's pretty much game over."

"…I was kind of hoping you had a better plan than that. But I guess I should have known better."

"Rude," Yato huffed as he scanned the shadows and took advantage of the quick breather to rest for a moment before setting off again. "We're looking for the exit. There's one somewhere, but I have no idea where it is. And it's undoubtedly blocked off. Izanami shut it down last time too."

"Then why are we looking for it?"

"Because we have nothing better to do, and slim chances are better than none. I mean, unless she parked herself in front of it so that we're walking right towards her, which would suck. Mostly we're just buying time and waiting on Hiyori."

"Hiyori?" Understanding, quickly followed by hope, threaded through Yukine's voice. "She can do a soul call!"

"That's the idea."

"It shouldn't be long, then, right? All she has to do is get Kofuku and Daikoku to make a vent if she wasn't able to call us through the other one."

"Yeah, but…" Yato hesitated, torn between tempering the kid's enthusiasm and not wanting to crush his hope. "Time works differently down here than on the Near Shore. It shouldn't take long up there, but you never know how long that translates to down here. So don't drop your guard, and we'll hold out until Hiyori calls us."

He didn't honestly see many options besides a soul call, and he was sure Izanami would be in a frenzy to catch and force feed him before Hiyori had the chance. The goddess would know about that possibility after last time, and Yato hoped that whatever precautions she might be able to take against it happening again were going to fail. But that Hiyori hadn't already called them through the vent they'd fallen through was not an encouraging sign.

"But–" Yukine started. "Hey!"

Yato whipped back around and swore under his breath as he came face to face with two Yukines.

"Damn glamours," he hissed. "Begone."

The identical boys stared at each other with nearly identical expressions of disbelief and distaste.

"That's really freaky," said one.

"Don't wear my face," said the other.

"Yato, let's hurry up and kill this thing."

"Yato, use _me_."

"He can't use _you_. _I'm_ Yukine."

"No, _I'm_ Yukine."

Yato could feel a headache coming on as the clones argued back and forth. This seemed like a slightly different strategy than before. He wondered if Izanami was laughing her skull off right about now.

"Just call me," said one, turning back to Yato with a scowl. "Only I'm your shinki, so only I can transform anyway."

"Yes, call me," said the other. "Don't leave me for him, Yato."

Yato ignored them both and narrowed his eyes at their indignant faces. The one on the left was a little too…perfect. All the rough edges were smoothed out, the eyes were a little too soft, everything was a little too sweet. Because glamours borrowed from the mind of the targeted victim, and Yukine was a little too perfect in Yato's eyes despite all the bickering and insults and bratty teenage attitude. Because Yukine was Yato's kid, and it was all too easy to gloss over your kid's flaws when your love for them made you forgive their imperfections.

He crossed the floor in a heartbeat and grabbed Yukine's wrist, bickering and insults and bratty teenage attitude and all. The kid yelped in surprise as Yato took off running and dragged him along for the ride.

"Don't leave me!" the ayakashi wailed after them. "Don't leave me alone in the dark! Don't you care? Yato! _Yato!_ "

Yato closed his eyes, set his jaw, and ran. It _hurt_ to hear his kid calling after him like that, even if it was just a fake.

"H-how…?" Yukine stammered past his gasping breaths as he stumbled alongside the god.

"You really think I can't tell you apart from an ayakashi?" Yato asked tightly. He pried his eyes back open just in time to swerve around a bend instead of crashing face first into the wall, but pressed his lips back into a grim line. The ayakashi was still wailing in Yukine's voice like its heart was broken, and it was ripping Yato's heart to shreds along with it.

"Shouldn't we kill it?"

Yato didn't answer, only narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on Yukine and ran a little faster. Of course they should. It was an ayakashi that could cause them more problems later if they didn't take care of it now, and it was proving to be a particularly troublesome ayakashi at that. He told himself he was sparing it because it would disturb Yukine to kill something wearing his face, but that wasn't true and he knew it.

He had talked a big game against Sakura's fetch, he knew he had a responsibility to care for his shinki even if it meant putting down ayakashi masquerading as them, and yet… He had enough nightmares about Sakura. He didn't want to add nightmares of sliding his blade between Yukine's ribs too.

Damn, he was pathetic.

He and Yukine didn't run across any more ayakashi or ghouls as they zigzagged through the shadowy maze, which was just as well. Yato should really summon Sekki to be prepared if they did stumble across something, but it was more comforting to hold the warmth of a child than cold steel. His grip had already slipped down from Yukine's wrist to grasp his hand instead, and he held it tight

The encounter with the fetch had shaken Yukine up again, or maybe it was still just the dark and general malaise of a dangerous underworld, and Yato was quickly becoming short of breath. But the kid was obviously trying to keep calmer and it helped a little. Yato was willing to blame his uneven gait and pained exhaustion on his own injuries.

They skidded around a bend and drew to an abrupt stop as the tunnel widened into a large cavern. Yato eyed the wide pools of glassy water warily, but was more interested in the homey little setup on the far end with the table and screens and cushions.

"That's…different," said Yukine.

"Izanami hangs out here. This is where Ebisu and I first met her."

Yato shot one more look at the water, remembering very well that the ghoulish women had caught him and Ebisu in the shallows and dragged them up right there, and released Yukine's hand before hurrying past and up to the low table.

"What are you doing?" Yukine asked urgently. "We need to go!"

"Just a second."

The little wooden box was still on the table, and Yato hesitated a moment before flipping open the lid. There were three long, slender indentations inside, next to the one remaining brush. One that Father had taken, one that Ebisu had taken, and one that Izanami was currently using to make a nuisance of herself. Yato brushed a hesitant finger down the brush that remained, his mind in a whirl.

" _Yato!_ " Yukine hissed. He hovered anxiously by the mouth of a tunnel leading out, alternating between searching the darkness ahead, looking back the way they'd come, and shooting glares at Yato. "Hurry before something finds us!"

"Coming," Yato mumbled.

Was there any way he could use this to his advantage? Izanami had been willing to strike a bargain to let Ebisu take one, but Yato's interests were pretty much opposite of his: he would rather use the brush to escape than stay to get the brush. And down here in Izanami's domain, she could get the thing back from him easily enough and he'd still be left without any bargaining power. If Hiyori did a soul call quickly enough and he took the brush with him, maybe he could use it as a bargaining chip to get Izanami to stop harassing him in exchange for its return? But Izanami had another brush and seemed far more interested in trapping living company down here than in the brushes.

And…Hiyori should have called them by now, if everything had gone well. Time had a way of twisting and turning, speeding and slowing, as you slipped closer to the Far Shore, so maybe there was really nothing wrong. But Yato had a feeling that something wasn't right, and it felt like they had already spent an eternity racing the shadows. He really had no plan for if Hiyori couldn't come through for them, so he firmly shelved his niggling suspicions away somewhere deep in the back of his mind. He had no time to entertain them at the moment, nothing better to go on, and no desire to worry Yukine more.

He was no closer to figuring out how he could use this brush to his advantage either, and he was quickly running out of time to scheme. It wasn't only frustration that gave him the sudden burning desire to smash the box and brush to smithereens. This thing was what Izanami was using to bring him grief and heartache under the guise of his loved ones, and he wanted it destroyed. Each brush he'd seen seemed to be more powerful than the last, and he didn't want to see if this one had even more horrible quirks.

"Yato!" Yukine said again.

Yato shook his head sharply and snapped the box shut again. He was drawing a blank, and right now it was imperative that they stay on the move. And get out of here, just in case Izanami came back.

He hurried over and brushed past Yukine. "Let's go."

"What were you doing?" Yukine asked as he jogged alongside the god.

"Nothing, really."

Yukine shrugged it off, which was just as well since Yato had already run himself ragged and didn't have the energy to keep up a real conversation anyway. His limp was becoming more pronounced as the gashes in his calf burned more and more, and his injured arm hung uselessly. What a pain.

He and Yukine paused and waited with bated breath as the eerie murmur of ayakashi whispers echoed in the darkness, but nothing appeared and they hurried on. After a couple more twists and turns, they burst into a small room hewn into the rock. On the other end was a hole dug into the side, opening to fresh air—the entrance to Yomi. Bands of purple glyphs shimmered in the air like shackles, chaining the doorway firmly shut. The tang of salt and sunshine in the air tasted like defeat.

"It's sealed?" Yukine asked, his voice growing small.

"I did say it probably would be," Yato said grimly.

"But then–"

"It wasn't nice of you to leave me behind." Yukine's doppelganger stepped out of the shadows and stood in the middle of the floor between them and the useless exit, watching Yato with soulless amber eyes. "It's scary down here, you know. I thought you were supposed to protect me."

Yato's breath caught in his throat and he hunched his shoulders. Not this again.

" _Yato_." Yukine poked him in the ribs none too gently. His lips were pressed together in a grim line and his eyes were hard. "We need to get rid of this thing already. Snap out of it."

 _I'm right here_ , his eyes seemed to say. _You know that isn't me, so why are you so worked up?_

Yato still didn't know how to explain, wasn't sure he even wanted to, but the kid was right: it was time to get rid of the ayakashi dogging their steps. He had told Yukine that he needed to stay focused, and the same was true of himself. These glamours shook him up like nothing else did, but he couldn't afford to lose his focus.

This felt like a final stand, their last exit closed off and no help coming and Izanami just behind them, and he was tired and battered and done with running. This was where he would stand, and he would cut down this beautiful monstrosity while he was at it.

He turned to Yukine and met his gaze steadily, hoping his eyes weren't as conflicted as he felt, and took the shinki's hands in his own. Yukine blinked back, eyes widening in surprise, but Yato held him for a moment longer before taking a deep breath.

"Sekki."

The small, warm hands in his turned to cold, heavy steel. He turned back to the fetch and set his jaw. He had a responsibility to Yukine that he couldn't outrun anymore.

But it was going to hurt.


	4. Chapter 4

**Note: Ready for it? *cracks knuckles* Time to get down to some serious plotting, my friends.**

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

* * *

Yato's hands were trembling, and it put Yukine on edge. As a rule, Yato didn't do a lot of trembling. Sometimes his hands would get extra sweaty or he would grip the blades a little too tight, but trembling was reserved for those things that _really_ shook him up. It was how Yukine had known Yato was so upset during the transformation to a hafuri, when the god had thought his shinki was dead, even if he had quickly covered it up with a smile and a thank-you and a promise to brag to everyone. It wasn't the bragging that had told Yukine how much Yato cared, but the trembling.

Yukine could count on one hand the times it had happened since. Yato was a seasoned warrior who knew better than to tremble in battle and rolled with the punches, and it took something major to make him lose focus and let such unwieldy emotions seep through.

Yato was thoroughly rattled already, before he had even lifted a blade, and Yukine didn't understand. He had understood with the phantom that looked like an old shinki—Sakura—because clearly there had been a heartbreak there and Yato had to love so much to fall to pieces in the face of an illusion. He had seen how shaken Yato was, and it had told him a lot about his god.

But this was…ridiculous, really. It made Yukine uncomfortable to see that thing wearing his face and the thought of killing something that looked exactly like him was a bit unsettling, but it was just an ayakashi. Why was Yato so rattled by that? He had already faced one of these things before and should know better, and Yukine was _right there_ , held in his very hands. How could Yato be tricked by a glamour when the person it mimicked was right in front of him? Why did he care about the thing so much just because it looked like Yukine?

"Yato," Yukine said impatiently. "Just kill it."

"Yeah…"

He groaned. Yato's fingers were still trembling and wrapped around the swords too loosely. In other words, not the grip he used to fight.

"It's just an ayakashi."

"…I know."

The ayakashi watched them from where it stood in the middle of the chamber several paces away, illuminated by the light seeping through the exit and past the binding runes to bathe the cavern in just enough twilight to keep Yukine from panicking. There was no life in the amber eyes that peeled back the gloom, but there _was_ something a little too lifelike about them. A porcelain doll that had no soul but could still blink its eyes and speak its programmed phrases. The disconnect between the trueness of its form and lack of real humanity made it all the more unnerving, and even more so that it was Yukine's form it chose.

"Why would you leave me?" it asked, and Yukine squirmed at hearing his voice in its mouth. Its eyes never left Yato's face, fixed always on its prey. "I promised to stay with you forever, didn't I? Do you still not trust me?"

They were the same insecurities Yukine had faced mere weeks before when Yato had vanished without a word and turned up in the underworld with _Nora_ , the ones that had made him angry and upset until Yato finally handed over a few of his closely guarded secrets, and hearing them voiced by his doppelganger set an uncomfortable itch prickling at the back of his mind.

But Yato's hands tightened and his brows drew down low above grim eyes, and he finally lunged forward. He was favoring his injured arm and leg, and Yukine took note and readjusted accordingly in the half-second it took to close the gap.

"I thought you were supposed to love me," the ayakashi said sadly.

Yato's eyes widened and he faltered. His forward momentum stumbled to a halt as he pulled back his strike. Yukine cursed and threw everything he had into forcing the blades forward, but he still only managed to make a shallow slice across the thing's chest. Not deep enough to kill. The ayakashi hissed and struck back, scratching nails like claws across Yato's arm and leaving blight in its wake before retreating a couple paces.

Yukine hoped the attack and blight would snap Yato out of it— _hello_ , it was _obviously_ an ayakashi!—but the god stayed still and hunched over, looking small and forlorn with his shoulders curving around his lowered head like broken wings.

"Come on," Yukine snapped. "Don't listen to that thing. It's not me, and I know…"

He trailed off, not sure where he was going with that or if such things should be voiced, but Yato nodded once. The god twisted the left blade into an offensive position and stepped forward, but every movement was weighed down with reluctance.

"You said you would give me a place to belong," the ayakashi said, and hazy snippets of half-forgotten promises made at his naming filtered into Yukine's brain. "We belong together. _Here_."

Yukine scoffed. "This place sucks. And Hiyori is still waiting for us up top."

 _Hiyori…_ He hoped she did her fancy soul call thing soon, because the purple bands glowing across the exit didn't look like they were going away any time soon and he and Yato couldn't keep running forever.

Yato's halfhearted swipe sliced through empty air as the ayakashi slid backwards, and Yukine wanted to groan. Yato could take out an ayakashi in one hit, even while injured. This thing was no match for them, but it was still getting special allowances for the face it wore.

"You wouldn't really kill me, would you?" it asked, amber eyes glittering coldly in the gloom. "You told me to live, remember? To live as a person."

Yato's hands tightened around the swords and a terrible moment of deathly stillness fell over him like the calm before the storm. No trembling, no breathing, no nothing.

Yukine tensed. The ayakashi had pushed a little too far, made a misstep and spoken a wrong word, and Yato was going to snap. It was the same hardening of determination that had come in the moment when the Sakura clone said something wrong and suddenly Yato saw it as an ayakashi rather than his shinki and killed it.

Yukine didn't understand what it was that snapped Yato out of his daze so abruptly, what it was taboo for the ayakashi to say, but every trace of hesitation and wavering had been wiped away.

Yato lunged forward faster than thought and sliced through the ayakashi before it could so much as blink. It screeched loudly, first in Yukine's voice and then rising to an unearthly ayakashi wail, before shattering into the air and vanishing. Yukine immediately tried to forget what he would look like with wide gashes torn through him.

Yato's arms fell back to his sides limply and the points of the swords nearly dragged on the ground as he bowed his head and stared down at the rocky floor with his dark hair falling across his eyes to cloak his expression.

"Yato…?" Yukine asked hesitantly. The god didn't stir.

That was what Yato had told Yukine during his ablution. They were the words that had made Yukine step back away from the line instead of crossing it. They were the exact words that had stopped Yukine from turning into the very thing that had dared utter them now.

Yukine couldn't say he _understood_ what was going on in Yato's head, but a quiet sort of half-understanding gnawed at the edges of his heart.

"Yukine," Yato said in a low rasp.

The transformation overtook Yukine in a familiar whirl of magic and change, and he inched closer to Yato's side as he slid out of the god's grip. Yato cast a sidelong look his way, dull eyes sweeping up and down his body as reassurance, and frowned down at the ground again.

"Uh…" Yukine didn't know what to say. "We have to go," he whispered, even though he didn't know where else they _could_ go. His gaze skittered nervously across the stony walls before returning to Yato. The shadows were making him uneasy again. A thin, bitter smile twisted Yato's lips for a brief moment before vanishing, and Yukine tried again. "Look, I know it was weird, but… It was just an ayakashi. I'm right here."

 _Aren't I enough?_

"I know." Yato's voice was tired but gentle, even if he didn't look up. "And I'll make sure you're safe, just like I promised. But there's not much point running anymore."

" _What?_ " Yukine asked, aghast. This was worse than he had thought. "You can't just give up! Yato, snap out of it! It wasn't me, just a phantom that looked kind of like me. I'm okay, and we need to get out of here before–"

"Still so young and innocent," Hiyori's voice sighed from behind them.

Yato didn't even flinch, but Yukine nearly jumped out of his skin and whirled around. Izanami's glamour was firmly back in place. She lounged in the mouth of the tunnel they had come through, effectively blocking off their exit. Yukine's skin crawled at seeing her wear Hiyori's face, especially after having glimpsed the skeletal horror beneath it. She didn't seem furious anymore, more amused and conversational now that her prey was trapped.

"Izanami!" Yukine squeaked, pressing closer to Yato's side.

Yato's total lack of reaction finally hit the shinki. He must have known Izanami was coming, was there. _That_ was why there wasn't much point in running anymore. They were already cornered.

"It _was_ you," Izanami continued pleasantly. Even the strange kindness of her voice creeped Yukine out. He knew how quickly it could change to wrath. She smiled and Yukine cringed. "It had your memories and thoughts…or at least Yato's memories and thoughts of you. It even had your name. Do you see, little shinki? It had everything Yato loved about you. _Was_ everything Yato loved about you. And so it _was_ you. Isn't that right, my dear Yato?"

She seemed pleased with herself, eyes shining with delight and lips curved into a bright smile. It was…almost childlike. She had made her arguments, made _good_ arguments, even, but the conclusions she drew and the way she drew them were born of a child's egocentric logic. It was _my_ view of you, so it had to be _you_.

Yukine didn't think Yato's problem was the same, but there was just enough truth in Izanami's ramblings to give him a bit of insight. He bit his lip and eyed his master. Was that why Yato could know the illusion was an ayakashi yet still hesitate to kill it anyway? Because he knew it wasn't Sakura or Yukine, but it was still a manifestation of what they meant to him and represented everything he cared about?

Yukine swallowed hard. He had been a strange kind of jealous of Sakura, somewhere buried deep beneath his concern for Yato in the place where he pushed all the petty thoughts he was ashamed to have, just seeing how much Yato had still loved her after hundreds of years and in the face of a mere ayakashi. That he had loved her enough to even transfer some of that love to something he knew would hurt him just because he couldn't bear to reject any part of her.

Yukine had been ashamed of such uncharitable thoughts, but he suddenly realized that Yato had done the exact same thing for _him_. He had thought Yato's reaction ridiculous, but now he wondered if maybe it was a strange, soul-deep kind of love.

"Yes. And no." Yato turned around slowly, damp grit scraping beneath the heel of his boot as he pivoted about, and lifted his head to meet Izanami's gaze. "Congratulations, you caught us. Now let the kid go and we can make a deal."

It took a second to register what Yato was implying, but then Yukine stiffened and turned on him in horror. "No way! We can't make a deal with her! She'll want to keep you trapped down here!"

"I assume so," Yato said flatly. "That _was_ the deal."

Izanami's face brightened like the sun and she clapped her hands together. "You _will_ stay? How wonderful! I'll still honor the deal I proposed and release the boy if you wish, despite how _rudely_ you ran away. Although are you sure you want to send him away after killing his replacement? It's not nice to kill your friends, you know. I don't think friends are supposed to do that. But we can always make another! I'm sure you have _lots_ of friends we can make!"

"Not right now, thanks," Yato grunted. He shoved his hands in his pockets and watched Izanami with dull, flat eyes. With his weight shifted to his less injured leg, he looked unsteady. Like he was bowing under the pressure and might topple over at any second. "But I would like to propose a couple addendums to your offer."

"No!" Yukine jabbed a finger at Yato's chest. "You _are not_ staying down here, and she won't make a deal otherwise. I told you, we're _both_ getting out."

Yato sighed and cast a tired gaze over Yukine, a look that made the shinki's heart sink down into his stomach. A look that said _didn't I promise you that I'd get you out, no matter what?_ It was the look Yato got when he was planning to do something unbearably stupid. Not 'I'm about to buy a hundred useless charms' stupid or 'guess how I'm planning to annoy you next' stupid, but 'you are my world and I am going to burn everything down, including myself, to keep you safe' stupid. Yukine _hated_ that look. It was stupid, it was selfish, it was–

It was the look Yato had been wearing ever since they first fell down into Yomi, only now he wasn't concealing the most jagged edges under halfhearted optimism and sweet-nothing half-truths. He had tried everything else he could think of first because he would always fight to live, but once he felt like he had run out of options…

"Just let me handle this," the god said tiredly.

He looked so _resigned_ , and Yukine was not used to a resigned Yato. He was used to a fiery Yato who never gave up, never stopped fighting. That the situation seemed so hopeless to the one who never lost hope frightened Yukine even more than the shadows pressing round.

"Don't you dare!" he snarled, shoving hard at Yato's chest. "We can fight or run or– We just need time until Hiyori can do a soul call and–"

Yato's eyes softened ever so slightly, filling with a poignant pity like he knew something Yukine didn't and was sad to see the breaking of his innocence.

" _You can't take him!_ " Izanami screeched, her otherworldly rasp seeping through Hiyori's voice. " _He's mine!_ "

Yukine cried out as something like a hundred thin cords lashed out and wrapped around his arms, his chest, his neck. _Hair_ , his brain supplied helpfully as he gasped for breath. The strands cut into his skin like steel wire and tangled about him until he was hopelessly trapped, and he was dragged back into Izanami's grasp.

She bent over him, and the glamour flickered to reveal empty black eye sockets and crawling beetles and centipedes scuttling among graying bones. A chorus of chittering hisses filled the air as the frightening, animalistic women with blue-gray skin and pointed teeth rose from puddles in the corners and emerged from shadows along the walls to crowd around. Everything was pressing in so close and the darkness was creeping in and Yukine couldn't _breathe_ , and he would have screamed if the hair wasn't strangling him.

"Silly child," Izanami hissed. Her teeth clicked and clattered in her permanent, fleshless grin, and Yukine trembled and tried to squirm away as she leaned in to stare him dead in the eye with shadowy eye sockets. "There is no way out. Yomi is _mine_. Every entrance and exit is sealed until I say otherwise. And I know all about the soul calls that stole away my friends last time. No one will reach Yomi this time. There will be no soul call. So let's make a deal, little shinki, because you will not escape without one."

Yukine whimpered, heart thundering and eyes darting about as the monstrous creatures and slavering darkness closed in all around him. Izanami _had_ to be wrong. Hiyori would do a soul call any second now and save them. She _had_ to.

"That's enough," Yato said flatly. "Leave him be. You're making a deal with me, not with him."

Izanami straightened up and her ghoulish women retreated a couple paces. They left Yukine in a heap on the ground, hopelessly tangled in snarls of dark hair stronger than steel. He turned terrified eyes on Yato, who hadn't moved during the attack. The god stood straight and tall, hands buried in his pockets and dull eyes fixed on Izanami. He didn't even glance at Yukine.

Nor did he seem surprised or upset by the claim that Hiyori wouldn't be able to soul call them.

 _"But there's not much point running anymore."_

Had he already given up on their trump card? No wonder he was so resigned to his fate and ready to give in.

"You can't–" Yukine rasped past the noose tied tightly about his throat. He flinched as Izanami looked back down at him.

"I'll stay and do whatever you want to ensure my continued presence, and do it without putting up a fight," Yato said, completely ignoring the shinki. "In exchange, you will let Yukine go. I would also, as your friend, like to ask that you never again pursue or interfere with anyone involved with me and that you no longer send ayakashi with glamours outside of Yomi."

"You would eat the food of Yomi first," Izanami said. "I won't unseal the exit until you do."

"Agreed."

Izanami's demeanor changed again, swinging back to childish delight as her glamour slipped back into place. "Then of course!" She clapped her hands together and beamed Hiyori's smile. "I don't mind doing favors for a friend. What else are friends for? If you stay and be my friend, I promise to follow your wishes. Oh, this is so exciting!"

"No," Yukine wheezed, clutching futilely at the hair around his neck and trying to tug it away.

Yato couldn't do this. _Of course_ Yukine wanted to escape Yomi, but not at so high a cost.

But neither Yato nor Izanami paid him any mind. Izanami was practically dancing with glee as she gestured for one of her ghoulish servants to produce a plate of food and scurry over to Yato, who watched expressionlessly. Yukine didn't realize there was a glamour on the food until it started to flicker, and his stomach turned at the quick glimpses of rotten flesh crawling with maggots that was hidden beneath what could have otherwise been a normal meal.

"Don't you dare," Yukine choked out as Yato reached down to break off a piece of the rotten food. He kicked and squirmed, but the web of hair held him fast. " _Yato!_ "

Yato brought the cursed food to his mouth in one smooth motion and pushed it between his lips. He chewed and swallowed without even the faintest flicker of disgust touching his face.

Izanami laughed and clapped her hands and released Yukine. The hair unwound and slithered away like a living thing, leaving Yukine in a gasping, shivering heap on the cold stone floor.

"We'll be friends forever!" the goddess said, unbridled joy rippling across her stolen face. She waved a hand thoughtlessly and the purple runes stretched across the doorway to the outside melted away. Five minutes ago, this would have been cause for celebration. Now, it left Yukine feeling cold. "The child can go. Come, my dear Yato! We'll have so much fun!"

Yukine couldn't believe it. He wanted Yato to laugh and spit out the decayed food from wherever he'd been hiding it and grab Yukine to race out the door. He wanted Yato to snort and say that Izanami was foolish to think such a tiny morsel would be enough to keep him trapped down here forever. Instead, Yato stood motionless and watched with unblinking eyes.

"Go, Yukine," he said.

Yukine shook his head in denial, jumped to his feet, and rushed over to his god. "You _idiot!_ " he wailed. "What were you thinking? There has to be something–"

He reached out to shake or hit or hug—he hadn't decided yet—his god, but his fingers stopped before hitting skin and he jerked his hand back to stare wide-eyed. Something wasn't right. There was something too lifeless about Yato's eyes, something hazy about his skin like it might shimmer and change if Yukine looked too closely. Yato was standing straight and balanced on his feet, not favoring his injured leg anymore, and, come to think of it, he had taken the food with his injured arm without so much as a wince or awkward movement. Something _was not right_.

Yukine stepped away, horror twisting his features. "What…?"

"Release them!" a new, authoritative voice demanded. "We will be taking them back with us."

Yukine's gaze snapped to the unbarred exit, and he blinked blankly at Bishamon for a long moment. The goddess was decked out in full armor and more shinki than he could count, her silver armor and lavender eyes and golden hair shimmering like the sun as she stepped into the shadowy underworld. Kofuku peered around the edge from the outside, Kokki clutched in her hand, and Hiyori's worried face appeared beside her.

Yukine's mouth hung open. He was too taken aback to remember how intelligible speech was supposed to work.

"You again," Izanami said, irritation tinging her voice before her face lit up with delight again. "You're too late. Yato already ate my food. He's going to be my friend _forever_. Why did you think I unlocked the doors? Take the boy and go. I'll honor the bargain not to interfere with you if you leave now."

Bishamon's eyes widened. "He _didn't_."

"No…" Hiyori said in a choked voice, her eyes filling with tears. "We were too late?"

Yukine didn't know what to say. He looked back at Yato, but he was seeing less and less of his god there. Was it a side effect of eating the food? Was he turning into a creature of the underworld already? Yukine's brittle heart was cracking, and nothing was making sense.

"Wow, even the psycho bitch came? I'm flattered!"

" _Yato?_ " Yukine whipped around, his jaw dropping to the ground as Yato unfolded his limbs and emerged from behind a rocky pillar against the wall. The shadows slid away from his face as he strolled towards Izanami, and triumph sparked bright and hot in his eyes until they gleamed like ice-blue stars in the gloom. "But–but–"

Yukine looked between the two likenesses of his god, one soulless and staring and the other bursting with life and smug self-satisfaction. He inched away from the former. If there were two Yatos, he had no doubt which was real.

"What in the world…?" Bishamon wondered aloud as she gaped at the twin gods in a way Yato would undoubtedly find highly amusing.

"There are two Yatos," Hiyori said faintly.

"Yato-chaaan, I'm so confused," said Kofuku.

No one was more confused than Yukine, whose brain had short-circuited completely.

"Lucky I picked this thing up, huh?" Yato twirled what appeared to be a paintbrush between his fingers, and it took Yukine's fried brain much too long to make the connection to the brush Izanami had been holding earlier. When it did, the shinki's eyes nearly bugged out of his head as a hazy idea began forming in his mind. "We wandered through your hideout with the fancy box, and I happened to find this and take it with me. I mean, sure, it was sort of a halfhearted idea that maybe I could use it as a bargaining chip or something, but I couldn't come up with anything.

"And then you caught up to us and I had this _craaazy_ , spur-of-the-moment, last-ditch effort idea. Honestly, I can't believe you fell for it. You should've been able to tell it was an ayakashi from a mile away, but I guess people see what they expect to see, want to see. So congrats on your new friend. I'm sure you'll like him."

Yukine opened his mouth to say something very important, but by the time he'd gotten that far, he had already forgotten what to say and, in fact, how to make his tongue work. The resulting sound was more of a strangled croak than anything.

Ayakashi glamour, the same as the thing that had looked like Yukine. But an ayakashi couldn't summon a shinki no matter how good the glamour and it had _definitely_ been Yato struggling in that last fight, so when…?

Yukine wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry. The only possible time to effect a switch would have been when Izanami lost her temper and lashed out at Yukine, putting her attention on him and taking it off Yato. Which…would explain why Yato hadn't put up a fuss when she snatched him.

That was such a _crazy_ , _ridiculous_ , _impossible_ idea to trick Izanami at her own game. It was…exactly the type of totally insane thing Yato might try if he was desperate and out of options and shamelessly trying one last thing without regard for its plausibility. _That_ was the Yato Yukine knew, fighting to the last breath.

And if this last desperate gamble had failed? Yukine's gaze slid back to the ayakashi wearing Yato's face and he swallowed hard. It was like looking at an alternate future.

"You cheated," Izanami said in disbelief. Her glamour wavered just a little but stayed in place.

"Of course not!" Yato said. He pouted with an air of injured innocence. "Aren't _you_ the one who said that the glamours were us? If the ayakashi that held everything I knew about Yukine _was_ Yukine, then the ayakashi that holds everything you know about me _is_ me. I even named it Yato for you. I mean, you don't know all that much about me so it might not inherit my awe-inspiring charm and wit, but I guess you should have thought about that beforehand. By _your_ rules, the deal is sealed.

"You can have this back." He handed Izanami the brush with a flourish. "It wasn't part of the deal, and I'd hate to take it and then owe you again now that we're finally squared up. It's been a pleasure doing business with you, but we'll be on our way now."

Izanami stared at him, mouth half-open and brush held loosely between her fingers. Yato was wearing a pleasant smile as he turned away and sauntered towards the exit with a slightly uneven gait. He slipped his arm through Yukine's as he walked past, and the shinki stumbled after him. Despite his obvious limp, Yato didn't slow or look back.

"Keep up," he said in a low voice. "I don't think she'll renege, but I don't trust her."

Yukine snapped his mouth shut and picked up the pace. No way were they going to be stuck down here after all that.

"Visiting hours are over," Yato added a little louder, voice bright but eyes hard as he narrowed them meaningfully at Bishamon. "Out you go."

Bishamon shook her head sharply and backed out of the cavern, rejoining Hiyori and the others in the light of day. Yukine nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to join them.

"You tricked me!" Izanami wailed, her otherworldly screech cutting through the glamour like a hot knife through butter.

Yato yanked Yukine outside and shoved the shinki behind him as he turned back. Yukine peered around his side to see that Izanami's glamour had sloughed off completely, revealing her in all her ghastly, skeletal glory. Her minions writhed in agitation, twisting the shadows in a macabre dance, and stringy hair whipped through the air like a maelstrom.

"And whose fault is that?" Yato retorted, and now his voice was hard as steel as he glared back. "You brought this on yourself. I felt kind of bad for you, you know. You reminded me a little of myself. But you went too far. The manipulation, the tricks, the hostages…" He shook his head, eyes hard and filled with disgust. "You're just like my father.

"So keep your puppet friends and leave mine alone. Don't forget our deal, my lady. Keep your glamours and your tricks, and leave us in peace."

Izanami wailed loudly enough to shake the rocks and echo endlessly in the cavern, but she couldn't leave the shadows and Yato turned his back on her and marched off. He ushered Yukine along and dragged the others after him with the sheer force of his presence.

Yukine wanted to ask what Yato meant, that Izanami was like him, because it was ridiculous and stupid, but he was still in shock. And he didn't dare ask about his dad either way. He knew little enough aside from a couple reluctant secrets they had pried out of the god, but the thunderous look on Yato's face and iciness in his eyes told Yukine more than any words could.

"You–you– _What?_ " Bishamon spluttered as they headed down the path away from Izanami's thundering fury. "That's…totally insane!"

"Is it going to blight you?" Hiyori asked anxiously. "Like Ebisu?"

Yato shook his head. "Ebisu's invocations were imperfect and the masks didn't completely shield him from the effects of naming phantoms. He wanted the brush so that he could control ayakashi without worrying about the blight. It's fine."

"I'm so glad you're okay!" Kofuku said, edging up alongside them and peering first at Yato and then at Yukine. "We tried to open a vent, but we couldn't bore all the way to Yomi."

"I'm sure," Yato grunted, expression unchanging. "She knew we were soul called last time and wanted to prevent it happening again."

"I'm so sorry," Hiyori whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "I tried, but… I couldn't call you back."

Yato's eyes finally softened, and he smiled at her. "It's okay, Hiyori. Nothing you could have done." A sly smirk overtook his face. "Besides, I saved the day! Because I am so _wooonderful_!"

Hiyori didn't even roll her eyes like she normally would, just bit her bottom lip and watched Yato and Yukine with large, teary eyes.

"You're both hurt," Bishamon observed. "Do you need to come back with us? We can tend your wounds and set you up in a recovery room again, if you want."

And Yato, being the idiot he was, turned to Yukine with a frown instead of worrying about the blight slowly creeping across his skin or the gashes torn into his leg or the arm that looked like it was about to fall off.

"She got you good," he remarked. "That hair of hers is the worst."

It was. There were thin lines of blood welling along the stinging cuts sliced across Yukine's skin, and they _burned_. Yukine had a new appreciation for all the welts Yato had come back with last time. But they weren't what hurt the most.

Yato pulled the scarf from around his neck, wincing as he jostled his injured arm, and unfolded it before folding it back over itself the opposite way and then in half a couple more times to make a long rectangle. He tied it snugly around Yukine's neck like a bandage to cover the lacerations there.

"We'd better get you cleaned up," he said.

Yukine, to his utter humiliation when he remembered it later, burst into tears and threw himself at Yato as everything finally caught up to him.

"Bakagami!" he wailed, burying his face in the god's chest and clinging to him tightly. "I thought you ate the food and would be stuck down there forever!"

"But I didn't," Yato said cheerfully, wrapping an arm around the shinki in return and patting him on the head. "My brilliance has saved the day once again! It's alright, kiddo."

Yukine leaned back and glared up at Yato, his vision blurry with tears. "But you would have, wouldn't you?" he demanded angrily. "If it hadn't worked, you would have given in to save me, wouldn't you?"

Yato cleared his throat and shifted on his heels. He didn't say anything, but his eyes told Yukine everything he needed to know. The all-consuming love that had nearly dragged him to the underworld for Sakura could have just as easily kept him trapped there for Yukine.

Yukine knew, in some cobwebbed corner of his mind, that it would have been logical, that Izanami would never have let Yato go either way and it would have made sense to at least get one of them out, but that didn't make it any better. Because Yato could be stupid and obnoxious and childish sometimes, but he always _won_. He was always _there_ when the dust cleared and the battle calmed. He didn't _do_ things like die or get trapped in hell for eternity. He was larger than life and practically invincible and would always be there for Yukine to count on.

And maybe Yukine had taken it for granted that Yato would always be there, would always escape the fray to joke and laugh and live another day. He felt like they had just brushed up against an alternate universe where that hadn't happened, where something had gone wrong, and it terrified him more than Yomi's blackest shadows.

"You idiot!" he cried, shoving Yato hard in the chest and beating at him with small, angry fists. "What were you thinking? You could have–could have–"

Arms wrapped tightly around him, and he struggled for a couple more seconds before giving in and dissolving into great, heaving sobs as he clutched at Yato again.

"It's okay," Yato said quietly. "We're okay."

Yukine didn't _quite_ understand what Yato and Izanami understood the glamours as, but he had the sudden, gut-wrenching feeling that there was a little piece of Yato still stuck down in Yomi. Maybe it was the ayakashi wearing his face, but maybe, more than that, it was a close call and a quiet heartbreak and something he didn't understand. Maybe Yato had left a piece of himself down there or maybe the underworld had sunk its teeth into a small part of him and kept it trapped there, but experiences changed people and could take little pieces of your heart along the way if you weren't careful. Yukine didn't know, but if there was a lost little fragment down there somewhere, it only reminded him of how close he had come to losing Yato…and himself. They both could have— _should_ have—faced a far worse fate.

It only made him cry harder, but Yato just held him close and stroked his hair.

"It's okay," Yato said again, dropping his voice to a whisper as he buried his face in Yukine's hair. "I love you too."

* * *

 **Note: Hey, I got them out, okay? It just took a little creativity lol I couldn't rely on just a soul call or they'd have the same problem with Izanami possibly setting more traps for them. They needed to essentially strike some sort of deal, somehow one that would be favorable to them. And this sort of crack-y solution is the reason we got a multichapter instead of a one-shot, because I wouldn't have continued the premise and had Izanami keep targeting them if I didn't have a way to resolve it. Although I did consider leaving Yato trapped... But it didn't really go along with the theme and mood I wanted, so it took a little more finagling lol**

 **Poor Yukine needs a vacation XD**


	5. Chapter 5

**Note: To be honest, this kind of serves as something like an epilogue or resolution, but we needed to tie up a few loose ends lol**

 **French: I didn't know you were familiar with Noragami too lol Oh yeah, nightmares for everyone! Personally, the things I find the most disturbing are things that are just a little _off_ or things that manipulate your emotions for their own ends. The glamours just happen to fall into both categories. I find them harder to deal with than a villain that's just "evil". They get into your head better. Oh, it's alright. I doubt most people saw it coming. It was a little out there. Small fists and ugly crying are the best XD No problem. Thanks for reading and reviewing, and I hope you have a great day :)**

 **Yato-sama: Well, this is the last chapter, unfortunately, but at least you got a little more? I didn't want to drag it out too long lol That's sweet, though. Thanks for reading and reviewing, and I hope you have a great day :)**

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

* * *

Yato sat up abruptly, choking on a wail, and clutched at his chest as his gasping breaths filled the darkened room like a living thing panting from the shadows. He could feel the blood hot and slippery as it ran through his fingers, taste the cloying bite of iron on his tongue, hear the sharp screams bouncing around his skull in a haunting echo, see frightened eyes going glassy before being swallowed by the dark. His heart battered against the cage of his ribs relentlessly, fluttering with desperation, and he hunched over himself.

It took a small eternity to swallow down his harsh breaths and blink away the last remnants of the nightmares clouding his mind like sticky cobwebs. It was still dark, but not the dank, deathly dark of Yomi. Yukine's lamp was casting a soft glow from the other side of the room, lightening the shadows to a hazy gray before they bled into blackness in the corners.

A soft shushing sound of skin against sheets made his head snap around, and he was unsurprised to see Yukine sitting up. He had been having vivid nightmares since their return from Yomi—fine, he might have already been having nightmares about Sakura since the first incident with the glamoured ayakashi, but they were a thousand times worse when his kid was added to the mix—but he wasn't the only one. Yukine wasn't getting much sleep either, and it hadn't been an infrequent occurrence for the two to catch each other awake sometime in the middle of the night or early morning over the past few days. They didn't talk about it—Yukine seemed all talked out after he'd spent a good ten minutes straight sobbing when they'd first escaped the underworld, and Yato had no intention of telling the kid about waking nightmares of killing him and Sakura—but Yato figured that Yomi would be a bit traumatizing for anyone.

"You alright?" he asked in a hushed voice that rasped along his dry throat like sandpaper.

Slightly narrowed amber eyes blinked back at him for a few seconds, but then Yukine slid out of bed, paused, and grabbed his lamp before padding across the floor. Yato squinted against the light as Yukine moved the lamp by his futon and climbed in to sit with his knees drawn up to his chest. Yato raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. The last thing he wanted to do was chase the kid off. All he did was rearrange the blankets to cover Yukine too, and they sat in silence for a few minutes with only their breathing for company.

Yato didn't mind. It was nice to have Yukine so close after watching him die so many times. A reassurance that he was still here. And although Yato had never been particularly afraid of the dark before, he was grateful for the warm glow of the lamp tonight to chase off Yomi's shadows.

"Can I ask you something?" Yukine asked finally, his voice almost low enough to be swallowed by the night.

Yato bit back his instinctive retort of _'you just did'_ and said, "Of course."

Yukine was quiet for several more seconds as he dropped his chin onto his knees and stared at the opposite side of the room with narrowed eyes, but then he sighed. "What… _exactly_ is it that freaks you out so much about the ayakashi with glamours? I mean, I get it, but… I was right next to you and you _knew_ it was an ayakashi. And whatever Izanami said, you know it wasn't me."

Yato stifled a groan, closing his eyes and pressing a hand to his forehead as his brow wrinkled. The _last_ thing he wanted to do was think about that mess and he doubted he could explain it in a way that really made sense when he didn't entirely understand it himself, but he didn't want to shut down on Yukine when the kid was finally opening up a little bit.

"It's…complicated," he said. He braced his arms behind him, palms pressed against the mattress, and leaned back a little to stare up at the ceiling. "Of course it wasn't you, but in a way… It's like… Think about if someone took your memory of a friend—who they are to you and everything you love about them and all the emotions you feel for them—and plucked it right out of your head and then made you destroy it. Maybe it's not _them_ , but it still feels like you're losing something and destroying that makes you feel like you also…" He sighed harshly. "It wasn't you and I'm not as naïve as Izanami to think so, but that doesn't mean that I don't still feel like I lost something.

"And with Sakura, that was the only thing… That's the only thing I had left of her, and resurrecting her memory just to make me kill her again… I don't want to feel like I'm killing you. It's not real, but in a way it really is. Even if it's not _you_ , I'm still destroying something precious to me that makes you who you are. It seems silly when it doesn't change anything in the end and you're still here and my memories are undamaged, but it still _feels_ like I destroyed some part of you…and some part of myself."

Yukine fiddled with the corner of the blanket absently, and Yato watched as the kid found a fraying thread and began picking it apart. Maybe he had found the wrong words, but he waited patiently while Yukine chose his own.

"I guess it still doesn't make sense to me why we should feel that way," Yukine said finally. "If we know it's not true."

"Truth is a funny thing," Yato said, feeling tired and old as he looked back up to watch the shadows flickering on the ceiling. "It's not always as objective as we'd like to think. Sometimes we make our own truths."

"Someone's feeling philosophical," Yukine muttered with a thin note of sarcasm that paled in comparison to his normal snark.

Yato just shrugged, a slight rolling of his shoulders that brought them up around his ears for a moment before he settled back against the arms propping him up. "When you've lived long enough, it becomes unavoidable."

"I guess. Just… That thing wasn't really much like you at all, I could tell something was wrong with it, but it still feels like we left a piece of you down there."

Yato pursed his lips and let his head fall back. The shadows at the edges of the light wavered as Yukine shifted restlessly.

Naming an ayakashi had been a peculiar experience. It wasn't like naming a shinki, not really. The bond wasn't the same and no emotions filtered through and the name wasn't inked so prominently across his heart or twined so thoroughly with the thread of his life. It was less personal and intimate, maybe because there was no naming ceremony or promises made and he hadn't used his life but a proxy.

But there was _something_. A faint, prickling knot buried somewhere behind his ribs that itched like sand in an oyster to remind him that he had an ayakashi servant somewhere beneath the earth. Directly controlling it had been stranger still. Its presence was not so prominent now and fell far from the forefront of his mind, but that little itch lurking in the shadowy part of his conscious didn't let him forget entirely.

He wanted nothing to do with it.

"The glamours work with what the target knows," he said. "Izanami knows precious little about me, so the ayakashi has barely anything of me in it at all. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it."

Yukine hummed noncommittally and worked at unraveling the blanket for a few more minutes before sighing. "I don't think it's really like that, though. I can separate it from you without much trouble and it doesn't bother me the same way it bothers you. Maybe it's more that… It feels like what _could have_ happened. I don't care about the glamour or ayakashi in themselves, but seeing them is like seeing a future that could have been."

Yato's head fell to the side and he studied his kid's wan profile in the dim light. Maybe he wasn't the only one waxing a little philosophical tonight.

He turned that piece over in his head and searched for a way to fit it into the unsolvable jigsaw of messy emotions swirling around the issue. Sakura was already in the past, although perhaps it hurt so much because there had been just a moment where it felt like things could be different. Yukine, though… Perhaps part of the reason killing that fetch had been so difficult was because it could be a future, like it had been with Sakura. And with Sakura looming so large in his mind, perhaps he couldn't help but make the connection.

Yato wouldn't let that happen, not again. He knew better than to go revealing dangerous secrets now, and he wouldn't let Father and Chiki anywhere near the kid if they took an interest. He was not going to put down another one of his shinki, not if he could help it. And definitely not this one.

"Don't worry so much," he said. "Your amazing master saved the day, as usual."

Yukine looked over with a scowl. "By which you mean you were totally useless but got lucky, as usual."

"How cruel." Yato smirked but then sobered and sighed. "I wasn't going to leave you there. You know it was me she was after."

Yukine's hands fisted in the blanket and strangled themselves white. "You idiot," he hissed, venom dripping off every word. "You really thought it was a good idea to run around in Yomi without a weapon or any way of defending yourself?"

"There is such a thing as a worthy sacrifice, but it's pointless if you're just throwing your life away for a war you know you can't win," Yato said mildly.

"I'm your hafuri! Your guidepost and exemplar! You're stuck with me, you fool. We're supposed to stick together. You can't just…"

"It's my job to protect you as much as it's yours to protect me," Yato said gently, his eyes softening at the distress concealed behind Yukine's anger. "It's not that I don't trust you. It's that you're the best shinki I've had in a millennium, and I'm not going to sacrifice my kid for something so stupid." Yukine turned abruptly red, though it was washed out and dusty in the shadowy light, and Yato chuckled. "I'm not planning to go anywhere, so relax. No need for silly nightmares."

Yukine scoffed and hugged his knees closer as he looked away. "Like I'd have nightmares about _you_. Please. It was really dark down there, that's all."

"What a troublesome shinki. I'm going to ditch you next time. I only didn't this time because you get all weird with the dark and would give me a heart attack if you stayed there."

"Hey!"

Yato chuckled and slipped an arm around Yukine, pulling him closer. Yukine stiffened, but then leaned against the god's side and dropped his head onto his shoulder. They didn't say anything else, just watched the lamp's glow dusting the room with pale gold and the shadows held at bay at the edges. Yato didn't feel like going back to sleep with the disturbing scenes his mind conjured up, and Yukine seemed similarly disinclined to face what haunted his nights.

It was enough to shelter each other from the night's shadows and relax in the knowledge that they were both still here.

* * *

Yato fidgeted restlessly as his elbow went numb against the hard wood of the floor, but merely shifted a little and kicked a foot idly into the air as he erased a bit of a line and started over. Lying down was not his preferred position to draw in, but today he had felt like sprawling across the floor on his belly and taking his time instead of resorting to his quick, off-hand sketches. This one was more…important.

He'd had little trouble detailing the cherry tree, the slender trunk curving along the left edge of the page and the delicate branches spreading their blossoms across the top. He had seen more than enough trees in his long life to be able to shade every whorl and grain of the bark and brush the suggestion of fluttering petals. In fact, he'd taken much longer on it than he really needed, as a measure of procrastination.

The girl standing in the grass below was a different story. Yato knew the proper proportions of the human body, knew how to insert every joint in delicate fingers and shade hair in locks, knew how to draw two eyes alike and brush in that hint of spark to bring them to life. He'd had plenty of practice, after all.

But the more he tried to draw Sakura, the more he doubted himself. Did her hair really fall just so? Were her fingers quite that long and slender? Was she maybe a touch taller? And her _face_.

His sigh of melancholy frustration lingered in the air as he carefully erased the small oval of her face for the seventh time. He had called it good enough on the rest of her body, but the face had to be _perfect_ to be _her_.

The problem was that it had been nearly a thousand years since he had last seen her in person, and that was more than enough time for the edges of memories to begin going fuzzy. Nothing looked quite right, and he wasn't even entirely sure if the picture of her in his head was what she had _actually_ looked like.

What a pain. Well, he had until Yukine got bored of helping Daikoku in the shop to figure it out.

" _Yato!_ " The door slammed open, and Hiyori's screech of fury made him wince. So, maybe not. "I've had enough of your interfering! We need to talk about you interrupting me at school and…"

She trailed off, and Yato feigned undivided interest in sketching in the curve of a lip so that he didn't have to sit up and turn around and face her. To be fair, she probably had a sort of legitimate reason for being upset. He had just been so _bored_ and maybe kind of lonely while Yukine was working in the shop, and the kid had only put up with his pestering for a few minutes before kicking him out. So Yato had gone to Hiyori instead, except that Hiyori was still in school.

There had been some shenanigans which may or may not have resulted in Hiyori growing so frustrated that she yelled at him right in the middle of class before catching herself…and getting in trouble, not to mention knee-deep humiliation, for it. At which point she had given Yato the most poisonous glare he'd seen in all the centuries of his life and, thoroughly cowed, he had slunk out with his tail between his legs and come back to hide out in the attic bedroom and get lost in finally acknowledging the ghost that had been haunting him for weeks…and, to be honest, centuries.

He wondered how many bruises this incident would be worth. Hiyori could get a bit violent when she was angry at him.

But the expected jungle savate never came. The footsteps that approached were soft and hesitant, and Hiyori wavered for a moment before slowly kneeling beside him. His hand twitched as he felt her eyes on the drawing, but she had already spotted it and there was no point trying to hide it now. He drew on instead, his hand tight around the pencil and his mouth set in a grim line as he dabbed the eraser across the oval of the face once more and started again.

"I…" Hiyori swallowed and tried again. Quiet anxiety threaded through her voice as if she was unsure if she really wanted to speak the words. "I know about Sakura."

"Everyone does now," Yato said bitterly. Izanami had made sure of it. That was one secret, one part of his life, that he hadn't wanted the rest of the world to touch, but it was too late for that now.

"No, I mean… I already knew. I know about how you named her as a child and how she called you Yato and how she tried to teach you a new way to live and how you lived a double life trying to make both her and your father happy. I… I know what happened to her with–"

" _What?_ " Yato stared at her in disbelief, wood straining in his hand as his fingers tightened around the pencil almost to the point of cracking. It didn't make _sense_. "How could you possibly know that? Only Father and Hii–Nora know. You couldn't…"

Hiyori bit her lip and looked down at her hands fiddling nervously in her lap. "It's… Well, I think I saw some of your memories. You were asleep and I was there and… I think it has something to do with my cord. I wasn't entirely sure if they were actually memories or it was just a really vivid dream, but when Yukine told me about that ayakashi… I… I wasn't sure if I should tell you. I didn't know how you'd take it."

Not well, was the answer. A clotted mess of emotions knotted Yato's throat. _No one_ was supposed to know that, no one but Father and Hiiro. And _especially_ not Hiyori. Hiyori and Yukine were the ones Yato _least_ wanted to learn about his bloodied past. He didn't want them to know about his childhood or the things he and Father and Hiiro had done or what had happened to Sakura. It was all so _ugly_ , and he didn't want to think of what else Hiyori might have seen if she had indeed infiltrated his memories.

"You can't tell anyone," he said harshly, and she flinched back at the intensity raging behind his glare. "It's dangerous."

"I–I know." She swallowed and hunched her shoulders as she dropped her gaze. "I wouldn't want that to happen to Yukine." If Yato had any doubts about the veracity of her claims, the look on her face when she spoke of Yukine swept them away just like that. She knew exactly how he had killed Sakura and what could happen to Yukine. "I just thought… I know you can't really talk to anyone, especially not Yukine, but since I already know… If you ever need to talk or anything, I'm here."

Yato eyed her suspiciously, waiting to see if she was going to drop any more bombshells on him, but she only twisted her hands together anxiously and looked thoroughly miserable, like she was starting to regret having said anything. He didn't necessarily want her to feel guilty for speaking up, even if he didn't really want to hear what she had to say.

He also had no intention of ever talking to her or anyone about Sakura or many of the other calamities of his past. They were his burdens to bear, and he preferred it that way. He had already told Hiyori and Yukine too much about his past with Father, more than he had ever told anyone. Couldn't they be satisfied with that and leave him Sakura?

But he felt like he owed her _something_. Maybe a token to wipe the nerves off her face and let her know he wasn't really upset with _her_.

"I named all my other shinki after her," he said, turning back to his drawing and trying a new angle for the nose. The floorboards creaked as Hiyori shifted, but he didn't look at her.

"What? But–"

"The family name," he clarified, his voice carefully neutral as he swept the pencil across the page. "The '-ne' unifier. From Tamanone."

"O-oh, I didn't realize…" Hiyori said nothing for a few minutes, and her voice was gentle and distant when she next spoke. "That's…kind of sweet. You named her and she named you, and you keep a piece of her alive by naming the rest of your shinki after her too."

It was a reminder of his mistake, mostly. A tangible mark of the sin he bore so that he would always remember—as if he could ever forget—and would never do it again, as if he really needed the reminder. But Hiyori wasn't wrong, either.

Sakura was gone, but Yato liked to keep small reminders of her around. Hiiro was the only shinki that was excluded from that tradition, but she quite literally belonged to a different family, along with Father. The '-ne' line wasn't affiliated with Yato's other family, and he preferred it that way. It was the line Sakura had founded when she gave him the faintest sliver of hope that he could change and someday escape the web Father had trapped him in.

Perhaps it could only be called a family in the loosest sense. He hadn't been very close to most of his shinki, preferring to keep them at arm's length and release them when they'd had enough. It was easier that way. Still, he had used his life to name each one and given them all a place in his heart, however small. He still _cared_ about them all.

And now that he had Yukine, the closest thing he'd had to family in a long time… He was glad that Yukine had received Sakura's inheritance. They were the two shinki that had had the biggest impact on Yato outside of Hiiro, the two that had made him happy and given him a family he could love wholeheartedly and take pride in.

"I'm not sure I remember what she looks like anymore," he said instead of voicing his thoughts. He tapped the pencil on the page with a sigh.

"Huh? That looks right. I mean, I saw her in your memories and–"

"But that's the thing with memories. They fade and change over time, and I've had a millennium to twist them around. This is what I remember of her, but I don't know if that's what she actually _was_."

They stared down at the intricate drawing of the faceless girl in silence for a few seconds before Hiyori let out her breath in a light sigh.

"Does it matter?" she asked.

Yato scowled at her. "Of course it–"

"She's gone," Hiyori said gently. Her eyes traced the lines up and down the page, and her lips were pursed in a thoughtful frown. "What she was is long gone. If not for you, she would have disappeared a long time ago. Your memories are what is left, and you keep pieces of her alive with them. Even if she's gone, who she was to _you_ remains. What you knew about her, thought about her, felt about her… That's what's left. That's what matters."

 _Sometimes we make our own truths_ , he had told Yukine. Maybe those kinds of truths were themselves a type of glamour. As horrible as the glamours had seemed to him… This was maybe a different kind. Sakura was gone and he couldn't bring her back, but he had reconstructed her in his memories and held on long after she had faded away. It wasn't _her_ , but it was still everything he had loved about her. When that wasn't being twisted around and used as a manipulation against him, it wasn't such an ugly thing after all.

"You're a smart girl." The strokes of the pencil were strong and sure as he drew in the sparkling eyes and upturned nose and bright smile just as he remembered them. Whether they were perfect or not, they were what made her Sakura to him. "You remind me of her."

They had that same kindness mixed with a fierce righteousness they used to chide him when he went astray. They saw the beautiful parts of the world when he couldn't see past the charnel and rot. They were so _alive_.

Hiyori began spluttering an incoherent stream of sounds and mangled words, and Yato didn't have to look over to know she was blushing crimson. Before she could find something coherent to say, new footsteps thumped up the stairs and into the room.

" _Now_ I'm done," Yukine said, sounding rather cranky. "Bakagami. You don't always have to bother me while I'm working. Hi, Hiyori."

"H-h-hi," Hiyori squeaked.

Yato rolled onto his side to regard her with an amused quirk of his eyebrows, and thankfully his arm only gave a faint twinge in protest. It was healing nicely.

Yukine blinked at Hiyori and then scowled at Yato. "What did you do to her, idiot god?"

"Nothing!" Hiyori said too quickly as she scrambled to her feet and dusted off her skirt. If anything, the blush only darkened on her cheeks.

Yukine looked sufficiently skeptical. Yato pulled himself to his feet at a more leisurely pace and tossed the pencil onto the table. He paused, glancing between the drawing in his hand and the two children beside him. Sakura was gone with only memories and glamours to keep her alive, but Yukine and Hiyori were bright and vibrant and _here_. In that moment, he was more grateful for them than he'd ever been for anything else.

He threw his arms around them and pulled them in tight for a hug.

"Hey!" Yukine protested, whacking the god's side. "Let me go! You're all sweaty and gross."

Apparently Hiyori had been pushed too far, and this was the last straw. "Jungle savate!"

Yato went flying into the wall, and crumpled into a slightly dazed heap on the floor. He rubbed at his pulsing bruises with a groan. "You're so violent."

"Hm?" Yukine bent down to pick up the drawing that had fluttered back to the floor. He frowned down at it, his brows knitting together over curious eyes, as if searching for the answers to all the mysteries of the world in the pencil strokes.

Yato picked himself up and pulled the page from between Yukine's fingers. He didn't want to talk about the past anymore. He knew Yukine was curious about Sakura, maybe even a little jealous, and wanted to know everything, but he had been feigning ignorance of the child's interest ever since they'd killed the ayakashi wearing her face and he wasn't about to stop now.

"Heeey, now that we're finally all here, do you want to go out?" he asked brightly as he left the drawing on the table and steered his friends back out of the room and down the stairs. "Let's see if Kofuku and Daikoku want to come too!"

For today, he wanted to leave the past in the past. He was drunk on life today, and there was no one better to share the heady feeling with than the family he had found.

* * *

"Not too bad," Yukine admitted. He had always been a bit miserly with praise. Stingy brat. "Looks like we'll be able to get you back on your ayakashi quota starting tomorrow."

This was the point at which Yato began to backtrack hurriedly. "Wait, wait, I'm not feeling so good. Ahhh, I think my arm is falling off! Yukine, is my arm still there? I think I might be dying!"

Yukine shot him an unamused look and picked up the pace. "You killed that ayakashi just fine. Time to stop being useless and get back to work."

Yato had to increase his stride to catch up with the huffy boy as he turned the corner down the next street. It had seemed like a stroke of luck when they received a call about a job this morning—work had been slow, which was fine when Yato and Yukine were still recovering from their injuries but led to a cranky shinki if it went on too long—but Yato was starting to regret it.

"I'm not _useless_ ," he said, affronted. "I'm _injured_."

"At least that gave you more of an excuse than usual for why you're always so useless," Yukine muttered.

" _Yukineee!_ That's _meaaan!_ "

Yukine might have said something even meaner, but that was the moment the lion seemed to fall out of the sky and land on its paws right in front of them in the middle of the street. Yato suppressed a groan as Bishamon shifted on Kuraha's back and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Oh," she said. Her lips twisted in a little moue of disappointment. "You're still alive."

"You don't have to sound so disappointed," he muttered.

"I was rather hoping you'd succumb to your injuries so that I didn't have to deal with you anymore."

"I knew I should've traded you to Izanami."

Bishamon tossed her head, eyes bright with scorn. "As if you could have forced me to do anything. Speaking of Izanami, she hasn't bothered you again, has she?"

"Careful or I might start thinking you actually care about me." Yato smirked as Bishamon glared at him. "No, she hasn't tried anything else."

"Are you sure she'll let you go, though?" Yukine asked quietly.

Yato turned on the kid in mock surprise. "Careful there, Yukine, or I might start thinking you actually care about me!" The punch to the arm was totally worth it. "But in all seriousness, we made a deal and I don't think she'll break it."

Bishamon did not look impressed. "You tricked her."

"I beat her at her own game and she knows it. It's a valid deal by her own rules. Now, if I ever find my way into Yomi again, I'm sure she'll eat me for dinner and that will be the end of that. But I have no intention of going back down there and I'll keep my distance from vents when possible just in case. I don't think she'll interfere again unless I wind up back in her domain."

"If you say so," Bishamon said doubtfully.

Yato started walking again and strolled right past her with a smirk. "It's cute how much you worry about me."

"Ha! As if!"

"For what it's worth, she shouldn't mess with you either," he added as he walked away, Yukine hurrying after him. "I made her promise not to interfere with anyone involved with me, and she'll know you from last time. If she does try anything on you, bring that up."

"You did…what?"

Yato smirked to himself at the confusion in her voice. Crazy bitch. He raised a hand over his shoulder in farewell and didn't slow.

"Awww," Yukine said loudly, "it's cute how much you worry about her."

Yato came to a halt so fast that he nearly tripped over his own two feet and choked on air as he stared at the kid in horror. Yukine was wearing a satisfied smirk, the little imp.

"It has nothing to do with her!" Yato protested. "It's blanket protection for everyone. I just didn't think to exclude her like I should have."

"Uh-huuuh…"

Bishamon started up an extremely undignified cackle. "Your hafuri is so much more fun than you."

Yato stuck his nose in the air, thrust his shoulders back, and stomped off without another word. Let them think what they wanted. Yukine snickered quietly as he wove through the streets at the god's side, but Yato didn't bother speaking to him again until they were walking down the path overlooking the cherry tree.

Yato's feet slowed to a stop as he frowned down at the tree. It wasn't blooming anymore, of course, the branches devoid of the delicate pink flowers, but it still tugged at his heartstrings.

"Yato?" Yukine asked.

Yato chewed on his lip, torn with indecision, but then looked over to meet the kid's worried amber eyes. "If you go find some flowers, I'll tell you."

Yukine blinked at him once, twice, and his entire face screwed up in confusion. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

Yato shook his head, wondering if he was going to regret this spur-of-the-moment decision later. "Just go get some flowers, preferably pink ones. And then wait down by the tree when you're done and I'll meet up with you."

"W-wait, but–!"

Yato hopped off the path and took off down the grassy bank without a backwards glance. Leaving the kid behind to stew in his confusion, he made his way down to the river and got to work.

He stalked along the river's edge, crouched low to the ground, and searched the marshy banks for any flicker of movement. Five minutes of searching turned up a frog buried in a clump of reeds, but it was too big and not cute at all. Not good enough.

Then he finally spotted what he was looking for, but the little critter was _fast_! He spit out a tangle of censor-worthy words as he lurched forward and his boot disappeared into muck halfway up and water surged over the top to fill it up. But he managed to slap his hands over the tiny frog, and he held it carefully in the cage of his fingers as he retreated. His foot squelched wetly in his boot, but he couldn't very well take off his boot and empty it out while stuck holding the feisty frog.

Resigning himself to his fate, he squelched off back to the cherry tree. Yukine was already waiting by the base of the trunk, lost in thought as he frowned up at the branches. He was holding a bouquet of flowers with curling petals in all shades of pink.

"Wonderful," Yato said as he stepped up beside Yukine, who startled out of his thoughts and eyed the god first with surprise and then confusion tinged with wariness. "Those are perfect."

"What did you want _flowers_ for?"

"She always liked them. You can put them there." Yato jerked his chin towards the base of the tree.

Yukine hesitated but then laid the bouquet carefully on the ground. The burst of pink brought a hint of life back to the barren tree.

"Who–?" He straightened and a strange look of almost-understanding flashed over his features. "Sakura?" he ventured, caution spilling into his voice and flooding his face.

"Yeah. Know what else she liked?"

Yato held out his hands. Yukine blinked at them but then held out his own to accept the offering. Yato's hands unfurled, and a tiny green blur leaped out the instant his fingers parted. It hit Yukine smack in the face, and the shinki's eyes went wide as dinner plates as an unholy screech tore its way out of his throat and he flailed about wildly.

"What the hell?" he wailed. "Get it off! Get it off!"

"Hey!" Yato clicked his tongue as the little frog went flying and disappeared somewhere in the grass. "He was supposed to go with the flowers."

He briefly considered a recovery mission, but it seemed like a lot of work and he'd had quite enough of frog hunting for the day. He didn't have the same patience for it that he'd had as a kid. Anyway, the poor thing was probably traumatized already.

Instead, he took advantage of his liberated hands to pull off his boot and shake out the water puddling inside it.

"What the hell was that for?" Yukine demanded in outrage.

"I used to collect things she liked and bring them to her." Yato bent over and tugged his boot back on, his hair falling across his face and shadowing his eyes. "Flowers and little frogs and other bits and baubles. They made her smile. I was a naïve kid, always trying to make people happy with stupid things. But as long as she liked them, there was no harm in it."

"You…" Yukine trailed off, at a loss. His anger had softened into something sadder and more unsure.

Yato stayed hunched over for a moment longer and smiled faintly down at the grass, his hands clammy against the wet leather. "I think she would have liked you."

It wasn't hard to fluster Yukine, and Yato wasn't surprised by the red staining the shinki's face when he finally straightened up again. But it was honest, and he briefly indulged himself in thoughts of Yukine and Sakura meeting, being a family with him. Silly thoughts since they each belonged to a different part of his life, but it brought a sad kind of smile to his lips anyway.

"Y-you don't have to tell me," Yukine mumbled, toeing at the ground and looking steadfastly down. "I know you don't want to talk about her."

"But you've been _dying_ to ask, haven't you? I've known for a while. I was honestly going to keep ignoring it, but…" He shrugged and sighed. "I haven't ever told anyone about any of this. Hiyori figured out a bit of it on her own, but I didn't tell her much either. You understand?"

Yukine swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I won't tell anyone."

"I know."

That was a given. The important part was what it meant to Yukine, not Yato. Yato was a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. A bit oblivious sometimes, occasionally even painfully so, but not stupid. He noticed things. He had learned how his kid's brain worked.

Yukine could be insecure. He was troubled by talk of past shinki like Nora and had taken a keen interest in Sakura since learning of her. He hated finding out about secrets and felt like Yato didn't trust him when he learned of them. That had come to a head when Yato had run off to follow Father's orders one last time, and Yukine had been a mess afterwards.

It was impractical to tell Yukine _everything_ —Yato had lived for a thousand years and had more than his fair share of secrets and pieces of his life that he didn't want to relive or share with anyone—and there were things Yato intended to take to his grave. But he could give the kid something small. Talking about Sakura could be painful, but it was a small price to pay to help Yukine out a little. And it wasn't like the kid didn't already know too much.

Yato was offering Yukine a small piece of his heart as a gesture of trust. And Yukine would recognize it for what it was, knowing how stingy Yato was with handing out personal information. Yato did not dole out such information easily and wouldn't do it for just anyone. But Yukine had earned his trust, and he would offer some of it back to him. Just a little.

"What did you mean about her being forced to cross the line?" Yukine's curiosity finally got the better of his nerves, and open curiosity was written across his face as he leaned forward.

Yato's lips tightened and the familiar tingle of guilt eased down his spine. _That_ was something he couldn't explain to Yukine, and something he didn't want _anyone_ to know. That Hiyori had found out was bad enough.

He didn't want to remember Sakura for her death, for the way she had twisted into a horrifying creature and wept to drown the world. He didn't want to remember the agony he had caused her and the cruel peace he had given her in the end. If his memories were his own glamour, if he chose what to keep alive, he wanted to remember Sakura smiling and laughing. He wanted to tell Yukine about the way Sakura had named him and tried to teach him a better way to live and been something like a mother or older sister. About how she smiled when he had brought her little gifts and told him that she was sure he'd have a shrine someday and showed him the beautiful parts of humanity and the world. About how she had blazed through his life like wildfire and left an indelible mark despite how short their time together had been. About how he still loved her and would never forget her and wanted to keep pieces of her alive in the ways he knew how.

Yukine was like a child sitting on the edge of his seat, squirming in eagerness to hear a story. He was so small and warm and bright, like a little ray of sunshine easing Yato's frigid heart. And Yato realized quite suddenly that _this_ was how he wanted to remember Yukine. Not as that copycat ayakashi with the blade sliding between its ribs, the one that haunted his nightmares. He wanted to remember _this_ Yukine, with all the snark and sass, the big eyes and shy smiles, the strictness and sweetness. The snow and sunshine, lights in the dark, hats with silly pompoms and coats pulled tight, casual insults and fond exasperation, twin blades forged in trust and loyalty.

Yato felt a surge of fondness for his kid, and a sharp sense of protectiveness. _This_ was what he fought to protect.

"Not today," he said. "I don't want to talk about death today. Today I want to talk about life."

* * *

 **Note: And thus ends the obligatory philosophical musings/psychological evaluation section. I can't help myself lol**

 **Well, that's it for this one :3**


End file.
